Journey of a Thousand Miles
by bluedawn01
Summary: A determined and slightly immortal Rose Tyler battles back to her Doctor, but coming home is harder than she thought. A reunion fic set post-Doomsday and assuming the Rose Tyler parts of S4 don't exist.
1. Trapping

**The Doctor thinks of Rose and Rose battles a formidable enemy.**

* * *

He put his hands in the pockets of his long, flowing jacket. The sun was setting over New New York, golden light spilling over the city. The smell of apple grass wafted up to his sensitive nose. He sighed and lifted his hand out of the pocket to run it through his perfectly messy hair. She was out there, somewhere. Too far away for him to reach. Out there living a fantastic life.

He hoped.

* * *

This fight was not going well. She was tiring already and had only scored a few hits on the monstrosity raging away at her with fists of steel and few identifiable weak points.

From the outside it looked like a terribly uneven fight: a small blonde human and a gigantic figure of steel and rotting flesh that vaguely looked humanoid...humanoid gone terribly wrong.

She drew her fist back and let loose a wild punch at the creature's stomach. No good, she thought as the fist shattered against steel and he cackled in triumph. Reeling with new pain and down to one hand and fewer ideas, she delivered a left hook against the soft fleshy bit around his head. That connected with a satisfying thud and then she ducked at the retaliating blow.

Their bodies fell into an all-too familiar rhythm for her; attack, retreat; thrust, parry; cause pain, be pained.

She found her thoughts wandering as the fight progressed. It was times like this that she really missed Mickey. And Jake. They would have been here to help her. Jake would charge in with guns blazing and Mickey would be here with his brilliant gadgets and solid presence.

"Where was Torchwood now?" she thought.

Rose Tyler, defender of the Earth, stuck alone battling some sort of cyborg zombie in one of Torchwood's pathetic attempts at a mission base at the mouth of the Rift. At least the Rift in this universe was in the middle of London instead of Cardiff. No dying in a dungeon in Cardiff. She smiled at a faint memory of a beautiful dress, callused hands and a shared smile. Then she frowned. She would not think about him. It wouldn't do any good. It never did any good.

This Rift was much more impressive here... a deep, jagged wound in the Earth with energy crackling all around. Pete had been fascinated (and terrified) by it. When he had been the Director, he'd installed a full research facility and team working on observations here. But in the time since his death this place of knowledge and science had been unsuccessfully turned into a missions base and then been mostly abandoned to a few junior guards and a footnote. That was much like the rest of the Torchwood they had worked so hard to build.

Her body was on auto-pilot, alternating between defense and offense as her mind wandered. What had she been thinking about? Oh...right. Torchwood. That was a good question. Where was Torchwood? Surely they had picked up on the distress signal from their guards.

Her mind flickered to the unfortunate young men she had seen at the door, seeing their glassy eyes and the impossible angle of their broken necks. This alien (Caer, did he call himself?) hadn't exactly been being subtle. Nope, he had been the audacious type, broadcasting his plans to destroy the Earth, harness the Rift and do something to the Universe (Take it over? Destroy it? She couldn't remember) directly into their radios, taunting Torchwood. She sighed, mentally. Usually the audacious ones were stupid and easy to thwart.

They had fought their way through the lobby were nearing the Rift now, the battle becoming faster, more aggressive, more fierce and Rose turned her thoughts back to fighting. One handed, she was taking quite a beating. Her mind casually calculated injuries as they occured, working almost separate from her body, as if she were merely observing.

Pain in the chest, shortness of breath. Broken rib, possible punctured lung. Numbness and heaviness in the stomach. Internal bleeding? Sharp pain and blood pouring down her face. Broken nose. Shattered right hand. Multiple lacerations and too many bruises to calculate.

Keep going, keep fighting, droned her head. No Torchwood to stop him. Just her. Alone in this god-forsaken universe. Again.

They crashed through the thick glass barrier that separated the edge of the Rift from the rest of the building. Really? Glass? Who had that bright idea? It was probably some "un-shatterable-bullet-proof-bullshit" that Torchwood had put in. Apparently they hadn't counted on 300-pound cyborg zombies. Weeelll...who could blame them, really? Neither had she.

Her brain caught up with the events unfolding around her. Glass. Weapon! Rose tried to dart away from the slower, heavier being but she was moving slower now, too. Exhaustion and injury were taking their toll. His steel right foot careened out and connected to her left knee with a sickening crunch. She knew that crunch. It was similar to the one her hand had made a few, long bloody moments ago.

Her body fell to the left as the knee gave way and she felt the white-hot energy of the Rift near her back. He gave another triumphant bray and settled over her battered body to deliver his final blow, to break her neck with his bare hands, a triumphant, leering grin on his face. Rose had been counting on that, flashing again on the poor motionless men she had seen earlier.

As fast as she could, she drew a long, sharp shard of glass from beside her on the floor and, ignoring the blood pouring from her hand, thrust it forward into his neck. He was humanoid and it seemed to be a logical weak point. Unable to identify his species or planet, that was all she had.

She watched as it slid all the way through, coming out the back of his neck, his blood mingling on her shirt with her own. If he had a spinal cord, it was severed. Did he? She didn't know. That had been her Hail Mary. Now she could only wait and watch, sickened at her own actions yet again. He stumbled back, the leer turning into surprise, then fear and then anguish as a final shuddering breath left his strange body and crashed to the floor with a resounding clang.

Rose laid her head back on the floor, panting and trying to supress some of her own anguish and sort through her emotions. The pain she was feeling all over her broken body. The relief that the threat had passed. The guilt of yet another body added to her count, necessary as it had been. There was no joy, no satisfaction, no relish in a job "well done" only perhaps grim acknowledgment of the action.

She wanted to turn off her brain and sleep. Maybe forever. But something was nagging her, a needling thought at the back of her mind. She tried to push it away but it was persistent.

Torchwood.

The word surfaced and she tried to examine it in the haze of her pain. Why did she need to think about Torchwood?

Oh...right. They weren't here. Bloody, incompetent idiots leaving the universe-saving to one girl and not even bothering to answer the distress call of their own. Why hadn't they come?

Then she felt minds crowding into her own. Not telepathic ones, human minds, relatively well-guarded, but she could feel them anyway. There were people swarming into the building. She probed one of the minds, felt him flinch and saw a picture form in her mind. Torchwood.

Adrenaline shot through her tired body and panic rose through her brain. No, no, no. Not now. How was she going to get away this time? She could barely move and that left knee wasn't going anywhere.

A trap. This had been a trap. Why swoop in and capture one alien threat when you could wait and get two? They had seen the signal after all, probably known he was coming and waited. Waited because they knew she would come, unable to resist the threat of a monster and the distress calls from under-trained, green young men.

She couldn't know for sure but she didn't think those men has willingly signed up for a suicide mission. Torchwood had signed off on their deaths...probably using words like "necessary" and "unfortunate". Words, words, meaningless, stupid words. Bile rose in her throat and bitter hatred for what Torchwood had become coursed through her body.

They would not take her. They could not take her. Not again. Never again. She pushed herself up with her left hand, clutching at the useless leg.

Assets, assets...any? No. No assets. Not even a banana. What? Her hazy mind pulled that memory forward...no. Not him. Don't think about him. He's not coming to save you. No one is. She violently pushed the memory back into the locked box at the back of her mind.

The team was closing in. She could hear their thoughts getting closer until she could see them on the other side of the broken glass, cautiously approaching, all guns trained on her. The emotions pouring off them bombarded her mind...adrenaline, triumph, nerves, fear (internally, she smiled bitterly at that last one).

She scrambled backward, desperate to get farther from them, pushing with the good leg and hand. Her left hand felt loose rock and slipped over an edge into nothing. She felt white hot energy at her back.

The Rift! Turning her head slightly and wincing at the pain, she looked down into the palpable, swirling blue energy, the chasm deep and unforgiving.

It was stupid. It was suicide.

It was brilliant.

Death or Torchwood? Her hand unconsciously rose to finger near her collarbone. She chose death.

She pushed. Allons-y!

Who knows? Maybe this time it would stick.


	2. Falling

She was falling...falling through this strange, crackling air. The voices of angry men far away were quickly fading to nothing.

She closed her eyes and waited for something, anything, to happen.

A wry smile twitched at her lips. As far as deaths go, this one was pretty impressive. Jumping into a bottomless cavern of pure energy to escape a corrupt government organization after being beaten to a pulp by a zombie cyborg? Definitely impressive. The stuff of legends.

Still falling. Falling and falling.

Hmmm...maybe this was it. Falling forever. That was a bit disappointing. At least her body hurt less like this. She could get used to this, nothing but blue light and the gentle whoosh of air rushing past. A bit boring after a while, perhaps. There was no excitement in falling forever but maybe it was time for boring.

And then everything exploded.


	3. Burning

It felt as though every atom of her body had been ripped apart. Ripped apart and stayed apart. Oh God, it hurt. For a time only the pain existed, nothing else. Not her mind, not her body, only the pain and the Rift.

And then...there was nothing.

It was the singing that drew her back. A quiet, lilting melody that reached for her mind, wherever it was and called it back. Asked, begged, pleaded for her to come back. Could a song plead? For some reason that didn't make sense and yet it did. She couldn't remember why.

She listened to it. It sounded familiar but she couldn't place it. It was as if it came from another life, another time, another place. Maybe she could ignore it. The nothing wasn't so bad.

She felt no pain. Had she ever felt pain?

She felt no loss. Had she once had things to lose?

She couldn't remember.

There was only light and falling and nothing.

But still the song persisted. It called and she answered. Rose Tyler. Was that her name? Rose Tyler. It sounded familiar, a bit like the song, distant and fuzzy yet somehow important. The music hummed louder, faster, encouragingly.

Yes. Rose Tyler. Slowly pieces came back together. Pink and yellow infused with gold. The music crescendoed, taking the pieces and weaving them together into the song. Rose Tyler, Rose Tyler, Rose Tyler. She was needed. She had promised. Forever.

Rose Tyler. The song growled it in a gruff Northern burr.

Rose Tyler. The song rolled it in a playful Estuary trill.

Rose Tyler.

And then she remembered. She remembered it all.

She had her body back once more but with it returned the pain. She didn't want the pain. Had hoped the pain would go away. She tried to let go again, to retreat back into nothing, but the song wouldn't let her. It grabbed her and didn't let go. She was Rose Tyler and Rose Tyler chose life. Rose Tyler lived.

She felt a warm tingle spread through her body. The gold was building...she could see it in her minds eye. That was familiar. The song and the gold, working together, forming a duet only she could hear.

Any second now, yes! There it went. The gold blazed through her body and the song echoed through her mind, rebuilding what was broken, mending what was damaged, replacing what was gone. It was gorgeous and exquisite and for a time...she burned.

So it didn't stick after all. Take that, Torchwood.


	4. Waking

Her mind woke up before her body. She slowly came back to her senses and began to feel through her body with tentative tendrils of thought.

First things first...what hurt? The answer that came back to her was a resounding "EVERYTHING". Well, that wasn't very helpful, was it? It was no use being cheeky with herself.

She tried again. What hurt the most? Left knee, right hand and a very tender nose. No longer broken but weak and very sore. To be expected, she supposed, sighing mentally.

The rest of her body felt rather like it had been torn apart and then pieced back together bit by bit. She couldn't quite remember what had happened between the falling and the landing but she had a sneaking suspicion that it had been something similar to just that.

Oh! Her body was waking up now. She was starting to get sensations. A cursory check with barely cooperating fingers revealed that she was lying face first on something vaguely rough and very hard. Cement perhaps? Ok, then. Lying face first on some cement. Cold, damp cement.

Waking up like this and attempting to figure out where and when she had ended up was, unfortunately, not an unfamiliar game to her.

Her nose informed her that she was probably in some sort of urban setting, the smell of cars and population and commerce drifting in.

Her ears informed her that there were people approaching. Sounds that were probably words bounced through her consciousness. Words were being said but she couldn't process them yet.

She wanted to open her eyes and sit up but her body rebelled. Her head was too heavy and her limbs were too weak. Not yet, she wasn't ready yet.

Unable to add this sensory feedback, she settled back on ears. The footsteps were coming closer. Heavy footsteps, like boots perhaps. A number of the steps stopped but one pair continued, closer and closer still. Those footsteps stopped, too.

More sounds. Words, words. She needed to concentrate on the words. She forced her sluggish brain into action.

"I repeat, can you identify yourself? Who are you? Are you hurt? We can help you," said a calm, male voice.

So many words, words, words. She focused instead on the voice. It was smooth and soothing. And something else. What? Familiar. A familiar voice.

"I'm with an organization that can help you get back to where you need to be. You don't need to be afraid of us," he continued, the boots coming closer.

American. The word rolled through her mind. He had an American accent and she loved the sound of his voice.

"I'm with a group called Torchwood and..."

TORCHWOOD. The word blazed through her mind like a wildfire. Desperately, her body tried to struggle away but nothing worked yet. Everything screamed "Run, hide, fight!". Without being able to physically move, her mind rolled and boiled, her eyes blazed open and her respiratory system tried to give out.

"No, no!" the voice cried, losing the smoothness and adding a hint of concern and immediacy. A strong hand reached out, grasped her shoulder and turned her body over.

Eyes locked and two human hearts gave way.

Jack Harkness.

Rose Tyler.


	5. Sleeping

Jack fell back onto the ground in surprise, his heart racing and his mind careening as he studied the now unconscious form of his mysterious friend lying on the pavement in the middle of Cardiff. This Cardiff. His universe's Cardiff.

Reeling from shock, he gathered her into his arms and buried his tears in her hair. How could she be here? The Doctor had said...but here she was! Limp, and horribly blood-stained but living and breathing in his arms. His Rosie. His best friend, long ago mourned but not forgotten, never forgotten. Giver of his blessing and his curse.

Gradually, he became aware of his team standing awkwardly around him, watching this scene and unsure of how to proceed. He stood and gathered Rose into his arms. She was lighter than he thought she should be, lighter than he remembered. How many times had he carried her like this? Carried her to bed when she fell asleep in the console room as he and the Doctor debated "jiggery pokery" as she liked to call it (although more often than not, the Doctor had insisted on that task himself). Carried her through an alien world when she took one too many hits and needed his help. Carried her, lifted her and swung her around just to see the joy and laughter fill her face, to feel her playful rebuke, to see her tongue sticking teasingly between her teeth.

When he looked down into her familiar face, it looked too thin, almost gaunt. Even unconscious in his arms, she looked haunted and sad. It was not a look he had ever seen on her beautiful face. He didn't like it. He grasped her tighter to his chest and strode purposefully back inside without a word. Whatever had happened to her, whatever was wrong, he'd fix it.

"Owen. With me," he barked. The man looked startled at the barked command but followed anyway. The rest of the team looked as if they wanted to follow as well, Gwen's concerned gaze burning into Jack's back, but no one else moved.

"Who is she, Jack?" Owen asked softly, breaking the silence as they walked to the MedBay.

"An old friend," he replied. "I thought she was gone forever and I don't know how she got here but I've got to do whatever I can to help her." Jack deposited her on one of the shining metal tables.

Owen studied him carefully. There was a hint of desperation in Jack's voice and love shining in his eyes. He looked at the unmoving form of the young woman on his table, deeply asleep and disturbingly covered in blood. He felt her pulse and did a quick surface examination.

"Right. Well, it doesn't look like there is anything obvious wrong, more like she's sleeping very deeply but something caused all that blood, so I'll have to take off her clothes and examine her," he said. It was a testament to his grasp of the situation that he did nothing to make that statement seem anything more than medical.

At that, Jack floundered. He didn't want to leave her side but Rose would never have allowed him to see her naked, that he knew for sure. All those times on the TARDIS when they had come back from an adventure a little worse for wear, she had made sure they were separate. Or the Doctor had made sure they were separate. That was when he was all leather and possessiveness. Although, judging by the pained, longing expression in the new Doctor's eyes when he had spoken of Rose, Jack didn't think that probably would have changed much.

"I'll wait outside the door, Owen. Let me know the second you find anything. Even a scratch," he said reluctantly. If Rose woke up (when! he reminded himself) WHEN Rose woke up he didn't want her first reaction to him to be a formidable Tyler slap. He smiled lightly to himself at the familiar memory of raging Rose Tyler, arms crossed and steely eyes ready to descend on whichever of them had set her off...led her on an adventure that had ruined her favorite jeans, made a snide comment about her mother (the Doctor, usually) or eaten the last of the chocolate.

"I'll do my best, Jack. I really will," Owen said quietly, watching as Jack descended into what looked like pleasant memories. His eyes snapped back into focus and he stormed out the door.

Jack paced back and forth outside the door and was just preparing to barge in, Rose's modesty be damned, when he heard a clatter, a soft scream and a yelp. He burst into the room to find Rose gasping, wrapped in a blanket, huddled in a corner looking for all the world like a cornered animal and Owen sprawled on the floor beside the hospital table.

"Rose, what the hell is going on?" he bellowed, caught between rushing to her and rushing to Owen. "What did you do? What did he do? Are you ok? Is he ok?" The questions spilled out quickly and he decided to rush to Owen, keeping his wary eyes on Rose. Rose's eyes were darting between him and the door and he wasn't even sure that she had heard him. He slammed the door shut and locked it, preventing her from getting out and his team from getting in. He didn't need anyone else involved until he figured this out for himself.

"ROSE!" he shouted again, lifting Owen to the table easily and trying to bring her attention back to him. She was still looking panicked and jumpy so he left the table and approached her carefully, keeping eye contact as he might with a frightened animal. "Rose, it's me. It's Jack. Your friend."

"Jack?" she asked, with confusion in her voice and eyes as if she had seen him for the first time. "What're you doing here? Where'm I? How did I get here?" Her voice was growing increasingly panicked and she turned huge round eyes to him. "Are you going to hurt me?" she asked quietly, desperately, searching his eyes for the betrayal she seemed certain to find there and clutching the blanket closer around her.

"You're in the Torchwood Hub in Cardiff," watching her stiffen at those words, he continued quickly "I work here and of course I'm not going to hurt you, Rose. I'm your friend. I love you," he said earnestly, trying to pour all the emotion he could into those words.

She stared at him for a long moment and he the briefest feeling that she was searching his soul for the truth behind his words. Seeming reassured at what she found, she let recognition, relief and love shine through her own eyes back at him, banishing the fear but keeping some sad light he didn't like at all. Breaking eye contact, she stepped forward, bare feet seeming so vulnerable on the tiled floor, and allowed him to gather her in a hug. She breathed in his familiar scent, letting it stir up memories that she had long ago hidden away with thoughts of the Doctor.

"I need to know what happened a minute ago, Rose. What's wrong with Owen?"

"He's fine. Just sleepin'," Rose said, simply. The vulnerability had disappeared from her face and been replaced by a calm mask. He had almost preferred the other expression. This one seemed so un-Rose-like.

"Why is he sleeping? What happened?" Jack asked, averting his eyes, a bit unnerved at the abrupt change in Rose's demeanor.

"Last time I woke up in a Torchwood MedBay it didn't turn out so hot for me. I woke up and panicked s'all," Rose responded carefully, steel edging her voice, daring him to question her. "I'm going to put my clothes back on and then I can wake 'im up right now, if you want."

She grabbed her bloody jeans and jacket from the floor beside the table, not bothering with the tshirt or knickers and Jack politely turned his back while she pulled them on, taking this moment without her burning eyes to consider what was happening.

This was one of the strangest experiences he'd ever had with Rose. He didn't know what to do with her or what to say so he simply turned to watch as she walked over to the table where he had laid Owen, placed one hand on the back of his neck and one hand on his temple and closed her eyes. It looked to Jack as if she were concentrating very deeply and then Owen opened his eyes and stretched as if he had just woken up from a long nap.

"Blimey! How did you do that? And why?" he asked, turning to face the pretty blonde woman standing at his side, apparently no worse for the wear.

"Combination of a pressure point an' a telepathic nudge," she said easily, as if it was the most simple thing in the world.

Jack's eyes widened. Telepathic? Rose wasn't telepathic. At least, she didn't use to be. For the first time, he stopped to consider that this could be an impostor, not his Rose at all. But she felt like Rose to him. As if she sensed his thought (Telepathic, right. He'd have to watch that), Rose turned her head slightly to gaze at him and gave him a small smile, a shadow of the old Rose Tyler smile, but the shadow was enough for him. Satisfied, she turned back to Owen.

"As to why...don't care much for medical people and you took me by surprise. Sorry 'bout that," she waved her hand dismissively but the deep brown eyes searching his own gave away a deeper concern.

"Ok, well, sorry to startle you and, as refreshing as that was, let's not do it again, eh?" Owen responded. She nodded and the eyes cleared. "You seem to be fine now, so I'll, uh, just leave you and Jack, then." He suddenly felt as if he was intruding on something he didn't and couldn't understand. This girl was something strange and deep and he would leave her to Jack.

"So," Jack said, unsure of how to continue or where to go next with that phrase.

"So," responded Rose. She cleared her throat and then her mouth curved into a smile, the first real smile he had seen yet. "Hello," she said.

"Hello!" he quickly responded, falling into their familiar game.

"Hello. Shower, then clean clothes, then talk, yeah?"

"Sure," he said, glad that she had a plan. "You can use the shower in my room, second door to the left down the hall. Towels are under the sink. Gwen is about your size, I'll see if I can get something for you to wear and I'll put it on the bed outside the door. It's winter here, so I'll try to find you a jacket, too. Then talking. No running off. And no more putting my team to sleep," he added, wagging his finger at her, a joke in his voice but with steel underneath.

She simply nodded and then suddenly gathered him into another hug, able to respond fully this time, and held him as though she never wanted to let him go, as though she had never thought she would see him again. He sighed and returned the pressure of her arms, resting his chin on her head and burying a kiss in her hair. It occurred to him that was exactly what she probably had thought. The last time she had seen him he had been about to die. Had died, actually.

She released him and walked out the door, leaving Jack standing alone in the MedBay.


	6. Talking

Rose emerged from the shower, toweling her hair and felt glad that she kept it a bit shorter now. She examined the clothes Jack had left on the bed, just as he said he would.

Gwen was a bit taller than she but the linen drawstring pants fit well enough. She also had underthings, socks, a tank top and a zip-up hoodie. She smiled. Jack had probably requested that specifically.

She felt a bit awkward but borrowed clothes were better than bloody ones, she supposed. Her trainers had also appeared next to the bed and she sank down to the edge to tie them on.

Task accomplished, she allowed herself to fall back onto the bed and breathed in deeply. The familiar, comforting smell of the Captain was all around her and she wrinkled her nose a bit, thinking exactly what parts of Jack she might be smelling on these sheets.

Oh well. It didn't matter. It was Jack. Dear, sweet, playful Jack who had laughed with her, cried with her, ran with her and had kissed her and told her that she was worth fighting for oh, such a long time ago.

She stood and left to find him. This Torchwood base looked much different from the ones she had left and she suspected that was one of the only things that was keeping her from running. And this was Jack's team. They wouldn't hurt her. Jack wouldn't hurt her, wouldn't let them hurt her. But she still felt uneasy here. Her hand ached and she limped slightly. That left knee wouldn't be fully healed for a few days. Hopefully she didn't need to do any running.

Five pairs of eyes lifted to examine her as she walked through the door into what appeared to be the control room. She felt very self-conscious and uneasy again, fidgeting with the bottom of her borrowed hoodie and seeking out Jack. He rose from his seat and came to her side, grasping her hand and offering his support.

"Rose, this is my team. Tosh, Ianto, Gwen and you've met Owen. Everyone, this is Rose Tyler. We travelled together with the Doctor and she's saved my life more times than I can count," he said, trying to keep the deeper meaning from showing in those words.

Rose nodded to each of them in turn, holding their eye contact and attempting to once again portray the calm that she didn't feel. Jack looked at them meaningfully and each member turned back to their respective screens and left Jack and Rose to themselves.

"So, about that talking thing?" Jack asked, studying Rose closely once again. He could feel the tension radiating through her body at his side, taut and ready to snap, although her face was a picture of calm indifference.

Her eyes were moving around the room in a motion he recognized, that he knew well. She was calculating threats, composing escape routes and assessing the room. What had happened to her in that other universe? Rose had always been quick and clever at rescues and escapes but this felt different. She felt like a soldier, a warrior hardened by experience, doing what was necessary to survive in a hard place. Maybe she was.

Seeming satisfied with her perusal, she turned her eyes to face him. "Yep," she said (popping the p as he had heard the new Doctor do) "Talking. Would you mind if we went someplace else, though? I could die for some chips." She flashed him a small smile but her eyes flickered to the Torchwood logo on the wall, her hand raised to her collarbone and he wasn't fooled. She didn't like this place and wanted out, out in the open. He wondered again what the parallel Torchwood had done to her. Whatever it was, it made him angry.

"Sure," he replied easily, keeping his observations to himself. He didn't think she'd run from him and if it made her more comfortable, he'd do it. He'd do anything for her.

They walked hand in hand through the streets in companionable silence, each lost in their own thoughts. Jack continued to watch her carefully, noting how her head subtly turned from side to side as if she were watching for unseen enemies and unknown threats, how she looked over her shoulder from time to time as if they might be followed and how she was vaguely trying to hide these actions from him.

Pausing in front of a chippy he knew well, Jack released her hand and ushered her inside, holding the door. Jack stepped up to the counter to order their food and left Rose to choose their table, one hidden in the back, far from the other patrons, in the corner and near the back exit.

He settled down across from her, handing over the greasy treat and smiled at her, disarmingly, he hoped.

"You're supposed to be dead," she said quietly, eyes on the chips and not him.

"You're supposed to be stuck in a parallel world with no hope of an impossible return," he countered.

"Yeah. 'posed to be dead too, probably. 'Sides...I like impossible," she responded wryly, the bitterness in her voice catching him off guard.

"How did you get here?" Jack asked.

"Jumped into my side's version of the Rift. 's like a big hole in the ground over there," she responded, again like it was the most normal thing in the world.

"What? Why would you do that?" he asked.

"Seemed like a good idea at the time," she responded indifferently. He knew there was more to that story but she wasn't going to tell him now. Jack sat back and waited for her to continue.

She popped a chip in her mouth and then seemed to come to some sort of internal decision. She raised her eyes to meet his. "I was dead, Jack. Just before you found me. I died an' then I came back an' you found me. It's not the first time it's happened, probably not the last an' I'm telling you this now because I trust you an' that's not easy but I need to know you're not going to hurt me. And if you are, I need to know that too because I have 3 escape plans routed out of this corner and if I need to use one then I might as well get a move on."

Jack stared at her, chips forgotten. There were a lot of things he needed to dissect in that speech but the most important one, the one that spoke to him personally called the most attention. "You died and then came back to life?" he breathed, unable to believe what she had told him, unable to believe that someone shared his curse.

She nodded almost imperceptively and he realized she was still watching him warily. Oh! He hadn't answered the trust question. Stupid. That should have been the first answer out of him but he was so overwhelmed with her admission...

"Of course you can trust me, Rose. I said that already. I will never hurt you. I'll do my best to help you and I'll get you back to the Doctor as soon as I can," he said firmly, hoping that was enough to convince her.

A myriad of emotions seemed to flit across Rose's suddenly very expressive face but they were too quick for him to make individual sense of them. For the first time since he had seen her lying in the square he realized that it was possible she didn't want to get back to the Doctor. That, he didn't believe was possible. But then she said she liked impossible...

"Besides, you're apparently telepathic now - and don't think I'm not going to want answers to that one - can't you just look into my head and see that I'm telling the truth?" he asked, unsure of the answer he wanted to hear.

"Could, yeah, but it's tiring and I was tryin' to respect your privacy. Testing you, I suppose. Plus you're a bit more complicated that most humans. 'Sides, I wanted to hear you say it," she answered honestly, turning her attention back to her chips.

"What does it feel like? When you come back.." he trailed off. Maybe when she brought him back she'd done something to herself as well.

"There's a lot of golden light and music and I sor' of feel like I'm being rebuilt from the inside out. Depends on how exactly I died o'course but that's the gist of it. If I'm still hurt when I wake up then I can still feel it a bit, repairin' stuff but it's much slower when I'm awake like this," her brow furrowed up as she tried to explain and she flexed her right hand.

Jack's heart fell a bit. That's not what he felt at all. He poked around in his chips. His always felt abrupt, as if he had been forced back into existence. No light, no music just harsh reality and air being forced back into his lungs. The golden light...that sounded more like...no. It couldn't be.

Rose was watching his face carefully and she gave him a slightly puzzled look before continuing. "The telepathy and all the other stuff didn't show up until after the first time I died, like it sor' of woke up all of a sudden."

"Other stuff? What other stuff?" Jack questioned.

She squinted as if trying to remember something from a long time ago. "I could run faster, didn't need to sleep as much, could lift heavier stuff," she listed. "Figured that stuff out slowly. But the telepathy was hard. It drove me mad for a bit, I think. Too many voices shoutin' in my head. In the end, Pete found me a planet of friendly telepaths and I spent an "extended holiday" there as Torchwood put it. They taught me how to lock up my head so other people couldn't get in, how to filter people out, how to use it properly. Oh, and how to put people to sleep," she added wickedly, grinning at him. "Pretty damn useful, once you get the hang of it."

"Why do you think it happens? How'd you change?"

She sighed and looked frustrated. "I don't know. Never been able to figure it out. You're taking this very well in stride, Jack. Most people are at least a little surprised." Rose was eyeing him very carefully as he picked through his chips, avoiding her eyes.

"That's because it happens to me, too," he replied quietly. "Not like it does with you, not exactly, but I can't die either." It was her turn to look startled.

"What? How?" she asked incredulously.

Jack regarded her nervously, unsure how she would take his next comment. "You," he said softly. Her mouth dropped open, chip inside and all. "On the Gamestation. The Doctor said you brought me back to life and I've been coming back ever since. Can't seem to stop it."

She took his greasy hand into her own, cupping it between two small, warm hands. "I'm so sorry, Jack. He never told me what happened on the Gamestation. It was all so quick and then he regenerated and we never discussed it again."

"It's ok," he said, adding his other hand on top of hers. "It took a while to get used to but I know you only did it because you loved me." Wanting to break this awkward moment, he added "Besides...it's pretty damn useful, once you get the hang of it."

They laughed together for a moment but then the heaviness returned, the two of them staring at each other over clasped hands. Jack was just about to speak again when Rose laughed for a second time, harder this time, pulling her hands from his own to clasp over her mouth. He joined in her mirth, unsure of what exactly they were laughing about but revelling in seeing her like this once again.

"'s just...here we are," gasped Rose through her laughter, "two immortal, death-defyin' humans who've seen more of the universe, well, universes, than almost anybody else, sittin' in a Cardiff chippy like it's nothin' doin'. It's so..." she trailed off in laughter again.

"Domestic?" he offered, knowing it would set her off once more and he wasn't disappointed.

Once their laughter had died out, eyes had been wiped and breath had been caught, they returned to their now cool chips.

"So," Jack said, breaking the silence, eyes gleaming impishly. "Tell me about your first time?"


	7. Dying

The dinner rush had cycled through the shop, leaving only Rose and Jack sitting quietly at the back. Rose leaned back and blew out a hot breath.

"All righ'. Well, first I have to give you some background information. When I got stuck over in the other universe, Mickey, Pete (he's my dad in the alternate universe) an' Jake (you don't know him but he was fantastic) had been fightin' the Cybermen for a while but there wasn't really an organized force."

"When I got there, we got together and formed up our own version of Torchwood. Built it up from the ground with the support of the president, Harriet Jones." Her lips quirked up and, at the mention of the name, Jack cocked an eyebrow but didn't interrupt.

Rose continued, "People were pretty keen on joinin' 'cause the Cybermen had been so bad. We built ourselves an organization, gathered a lot of smart, brave people around us and started to venture out into the stars. It took a few years, but pretty soon we were well-trained, well-equipped an' well-funded. Mickey, Jake an' I were all part of the first field ops team."

She smiled fondly at the memory of the three of them, the Three Musketeers, they had called themselves (cliche, she'd thought but Mickey was set on "classic"). Her mum hadn't liked it, the three of them being in so much danger, and had begged and pleaded with both her and Pete to rethink it but really they were the obvious choice. Already had experience with aliens, able to deal easily with threatening situations and, of course, excellent at running.

And Rose needed something to keep her from thinking about the Doctor.

"Thought it would be a bit like travellin' with the Doctor but it wasn't, not really. Tech wasn't nearly as good an' it was a lot harder, a lot bloodier. Still though, we made a difference. Saved some people, saved the universe a fair few times, had a lot of really close shaves, did a lot of runnin'," There was sadness and pride mixed into her voice, a voice that spoke with a heaviness of knowledge behind its years.

Jack nodded at the thought. His world had become a lot bloodier and more violent since he'd left the Doctor as well. And it explained why Rose now moved with the authority of a soldier. She was one. Or had been.

"We got a call from a planet called Iriganus requesting for us to come and help with some peace talks between two rival clans. We'd built up a pretty good reputation with that sor' of thing. Learned a lot more from the Doctor's gob than I thought," she said, smiling at memories of trying to babble aliens into submission as he had. Sometimes it had even worked.

"It'd been a nasty war, goin' on for years and they had finally reached the point where they couldn't take it anymore. Resources were runnin' out and the body count was too high on both sides. My team went an' Pete came, too."

"It was goin' real well until some idiot group decided that peace wasn' really what they wanted an' even if they did, they didn't appreciate some foreigners comin' in to tell 'em how to do it, anyway. They blew up our ship and charged in, tryin' to assassinate both leaders." She took a deep, steadying breath, steadying herself for the next bit.

"Pete knocked one down and I jumped for the other but I was a bit too late. They'd already fired so I took the bolt meant for him and that was it. It hurt like hell an' I could hear commotion around me, people shoutin' and beatin' on my chest. Pete was yellin' an' Mickey was cryin'. Shots. But I couldn't hold on. It was too much. I died."

Tears filled her eyes as the memory came back, re-living the pain and the noise and seeing Mickey distraught over her body. She pressed a hand over her heart, remembering the burning of the blaster bolt and Jack watched with misty eyes.

"Everything else Mickey told me later. The attack on peaceful arbitrators was enough to bring both sides together, so they stopped the fightin' and gathered up the rebels. Suppose that turned out all right in the end, then."

"They were pretty primitive and didn't have tech capable of gettin' us back, so Mickey and Jake were going to have to scrounge around and fix our ship with bits and bobs. We were stuck there until they could. Well, they were. I was dead. Since we couldn't get home, the Irigani offered to have a traditional memorial service for me, honoring me for 'the sacrifice I made to bring them peace', calling me 'The Valiant Child'," she said, giving the name a weight that Jack didn't understand.

"Pete agreed as long as he could take my body back when Jake and Mickey got the ship fixed. It took about three days to set up the service. According to Mickey it was a big deal...banners, costumes, songs written about me, the whole nine yards. They put me in some sor' of glass box, a bit like a coffin...very Snow White, and put it up front so people could file past and look at me. Bit embarassin' now, to think about it."

"Yes, very Eva Peron," Jack said, laughing.

Rose crinckled her nose at him. "Who?" she asked. Jack smiled at her. Never big on history, his Rosie. He'd had an...encounter with Ms. Peron when he'd been stuck on Earth waiting for the Doctor. He grinned again, wolfishly, more to himself than to her. It never got boring, seducing famous historical figures. He'd have to tell her about the time he met Elton John sometime.

"Anyway, sometime in the middle of the service, the casket started to glow golden and then Mickey said it exploded, right in the middle of a song extolling my virtue or something ridiculous like that. Jake said he reckons I timed it on purpose so no one would have to listen to that song any longer. Once everything cleared, I just sat up, berated Mickey for letting them put me in such a ridiculous dress, asked Pete for some chips and then passed out."

Jack laughed at the picture. "Of course! You wake up from the dead with a massive explosion in the middle of your own memorial service and the first thing you think about is clothes and food," he snorted.

"Well, in case you didn't remember, I always was one for flash," Rose responded, sticking her tongue between her teeth and kicking him lightly under the table. It felt so good to be with him, comfortable and safe. Laughing and feeling joy hadn't been a part of her life for a while and she relished in it now. In her experience it wouldn't last long so she wanted to grab it while she could.

"I couldn't remember much, only light and singin' when I woke up. I was really confused and had a hard time sortin' through Pete an' Jake an' Mickey's thoughts all crowded in on my own. Didn't know what to do with all the noise in there. Eventually Pete gave me a really heavy sedative and bundled me back to Earth as soon as Mickey and Jake fixed the ship. He swore the Irigani to secrecy and left the part about me dyin' outta all the Torchwood reports."

"He and the team told everybody that I'd been hurt really bad and needed to recover at home with private doctors and special care due to the "alien nature" of my injuries. Our team's doctor, Martha Jones, couldn't find anything wrong with me 'cept in my head. Body-wise I was fine, great even...what?" Rose stopped because Jack sputtered over the name.

"Did you say Martha Jones?" he asked, shocked.

"Yeah. She was our medical officer. Great gal, very pretty. One of my best friends, actually. Married Mickey later," Rose responded. At the last statement, Jack actually spit his water out on the table and Rose looked at him, curiosity spilling out. "Why, is it important?"

"No, not important," Jack responded weakly, wiping water from his mouth and the table. Well, alternate universe after all. When the Doctor had filled him in on the other universe's Cybermen, he told Jack that there had been two Mickeys. He wondered idly if there was another version of him there. That would be fun. "Keep going with your story."

Rose didn't believe the "not important" part but she was eager to get this story time over with. It was hard to go back and re-live parts of her life, especially when she had to talk about people that were now long gone. 'But humans decay; you wither and you die'...the words echoed through her memory, distant and haunting. Especially people who were gone because of her.

"That's when Pete got me off-world for trainin', telling people that I was recovering from my injuries in a Physical Therapy Spa in Quadrent 4. When I got back, I was even more useful, although we had to be very careful with the "improvements" since people were pretty jumpy about anything alien on Earth."

"It wasn't too hard to keep people from figuring out the weird stuff since Mickey, Jake and I ranked so high and Pete was director. And we were daft enough to think that since we were doing a good things, saving people an' stuff that it was enough."

"Then we figured out that I had stopped aging. Couldn't keep people from noticing that, so Pete had to send me off-world again. Officially, I was listed as an ambassador and I had my own ship. It was excitin' at first. Able to go anywhere I wanted in the universe, make my own decisions. I travelled places, did missions, helped people," she stretched out, putting her feet up on the booth across from her, next to Jack's legs.

"I kept as busy as I could but I was lonely. I missed Mickey and Pete and Mum and my little brother...I missed him growing up because I could barely ever go back. Too risky. There were some people at Torchwood gettin' nosy. I saw 'em occasionally...snuck back to Earth, met Mickey in crummy space bars, shopped on TalaniaI VI with Martha, but they all had lives of their own that went on without me and all I could do was watch."

Her eyes were distant now, far-away and filled with a pain Jack could almost understand. He'd had years of experience now, watching people he met come and go, live and die. And now that he had surrounded himself with people he really cared about, a surrogate family that he would have to watch pass by eventually, he felt her pain.

He also understood Rose. Rose felt deeper than he did, deeper than anyone else he had ever known. She had always been so compassionate, so full of love even for people they had met in passing on nameless planets thousands of years separated from her own time, fighting for them as fiercely as she fought for herself, rejoicing when they rejoiced, crying for them and with them when they mourned.

It was one of the things Jack loved most about her and one of the things ol' big ears had once shared with Jack had brought him back from the darkness of the Time War. These people had been her family, her everything. Everything except the Doctor, who he understood she thought she had lost to another kind of permanence.

"Tony's daughter didn't even recognize me at her fifth birthday party," she said quietly.

"I started to get more reckless, taking dangerous missions, not caring what happened to me on them. My body would heal itself anyway so what was a little extra pain? I managed not to die again but I got captured a lot. Getting away became a sort of catharsis for me, a challenge, somethin' to remind me I was alive." The words came out as if they were a calm confession, merely an assessment of a life gone past, but there was a fine line of bitterness underneath it all. Bitterness and pain and guilt.

"Only...once I couldn't get away. It was a bad situation to start with...lots of stuff went wrong and I lost Pete. But then it got worse. So much worse," her voice had grown so quiet that Jack struggled to hear her and the deep pain shining through made him hurt, too. It was clear to him that he wasn't going to get the full story now and would have to piece together what she offered him. Maybe it would help him understand her fear of Torchwood. "I was so angry at the time. I thought I didn't have anything to lose. But I was wrong. Terribly wrong. I killed him, Jack." Dark, fathomless orbs of brown regarded him with a terrifying depth.

Jack hadn't even realized that he had crossed the distance between them as he moved to sit beside her on her bench. "Killed who, Rose? What do you mean?" he asked quieter still.

She looked away from him, staring straight ahead into nothing. He deserved the whole story but she couldn't live it all again now.

"Mickey. I killed Mickey. Torchwood mounted a rescue and he demanded to come along. He'd been out of the field for years but he came along anyway. He didn't make it back. He died to save me. To save me from my own stupidity. Stupid, arrogant, useless ape that I am, I couldn't get away and he paid the price. He was a year from retirement. Two kids in college. He'd been leading a fantastic life and he threw it away for me."

Her voice was hollow, her tears long ago spent. She barely noticed when Jack moved to hold her awkwardly on the padded bench of the booth. She didn't return his embrace, just merely let him hold her, trying to offer her comfort where none was deserved.

Mickey's death and Pete's, not to mention the ones she had caused even more directly, always out of necessity but by her hand nonetheless, had caused her to think that perhaps she deserved what Torchwood had done next and in the subsequent years of hell.

Jack simply held her against his chest, her body rigid and unforgiving in his arms. He didn't know how long they sat there in the booth, chips wrappers long forgotten in cares long beyond this universe.

She was broken. His precious Rosie was broken and she needed more than just him. She needed the Doctor. But for now, he would have to do.


	8. Drinking

The Doctor stared at his long lean fingers entwined with each other on the shiny, wooden bar. Second bar he'd been to in two days. That was rather unlike him, this him at least, but he was feeling a bit low. He was here alone, having left Donna at home for a week for a visit with her family by her request. He sighed. He knew it was more than that, had taken a glance at her timeline and knew what was coming.

It was with Donna that he had spent yesterday evening in a bar, an Earth bar, in the 21st century. He had taken her home for tea with her mum and grandad. When had he gotten into the habit of that? He snorted to himself. It was so domestic. Last him had hated domestic, railed on it, recoiled at it as dramatically as possible, as often as possible, once braving a plasma storm so he didn't have to have tea with Jackie Tyler.

Of course, he knew the answer. Rose.

She had started to melt him even through the battered leather and hard exterior of his ninth body. This new regeneration had her written all over it. His boyish, pretty face, his joyful demeanor and boundless energy, his softer, more-likeable personality, his really great hair, even the way his hand slotted perfectly into hers, as if it had been made to order.

Jackie had even kissed him last time he'd been in her flat. He tried to imagine what his previous incarnation would have done if he had been kissed by Jackie Tyler. Now that was funny.

He suspected the TARDIS had helped him along a bit during the transformation, building a body Rose would like, a man that deserved her love. The ship had always had a certain affinity with Rose, altering things for her, making small amends to make her more comfortable, things she had never seemed interested in doing for any companions before.

The furniture had become softer and more feminine with things like throw pillows (much to his dismay), the average interior temperature was raised and even the towels had been fluffier. And she almost always made it impossible for him to find Rose's door if it was before 8:00 AM.

After the Bad Wolf incident he had often felt the two of them engaged in some sort of wordless conversation, seeing Rose absently stroking whatever piece of the ship she as near as she had often teased him about before. He never commented, wondering if she noticed it herself and the TARDIS refused to discuss it with him only ever receiving an irritated hum when he questioned.

He missed her so badly and he knew the ship did, too. It had been hard to continue without her but they had been forced into action almost immediately first with Donna then the Judoon...

It was all exhausting and throughout the past two years he continually found himself reaching for her hand, turning to tell her something devastatingly clever, searching for her in crowds where he knew she wouldn't be.

And this body was so tactile. It had such a need to touch (and taste) and be touched (luckily not to be tasted, although not that he hadn't thought about it with Rose...) in general but more than that, he knew it needed to touch and be touched by her.

It physically ached to be without her and he felt as though something vital was missing from his soul. Maybe it was. This regeneration had been so inundated with thoughts of her during the process, it was possible.

Martha had been a good companion but he knew he had hurt her. It hadn't been intentional but it still pained him nonetheless. He had known she wouldn't stay long and now he was going to lose Donna, his fiery, rude and ginger best mate. He lost them all in the end.

She had drug him to that Earth bar, seeing him in one of his melancholy "space man mopes" as she called them. He had protested and said that, of course, Time Lords don't mope but he knew he was. Ninth him would have brooded. He had just begun to master the brooding and then he had to up and learn how to mope. Frustrating, that was.

Donna had berated him until he gave in and went with her to a rather dark and sticky pub. Thankfully Wilfred had come with them and had distracted him from the moping with chatter as Donna flitted around the bar with some girls from her old temp agency.

He hadn't been paying attention to Donna until he felt something click in her timeline. Some sort of fixed point had just passed and he swung his head around to find her, anxious to see what had happened.

His eyes found her leaning against the bar with her hand on the arm of a good-looking friendly sort of man. He glanced a look at the timeline again and saw with a mixture of happiness and sadness that the two's timelines had started to mesh together.

Events flashed in front of him. Donna would ask to stay for a week to spend time with her family. He'd return two weeks late, feigning innocence but she will hardly have noticed. In that month, she'll fall in love with this man and he'll have to give her back her hat boxes. The two will marry and she'll threaten him within an inch of his life if he doesn't come to the wedding. They'll have four children and live a grand life together...the one adventure he can never have. And just like that, he'll be alone again.

He transferred his hands to his hair, mussing up the hard work he'd put into it on the TARDIS and stared at the empty glass in front of him.

"You look like you could use a pal and a drink," a voice behind him said. He turned his head slightly to see a man with two heads and three arms standing behind him.

"No good at being a pal though, so I'll just buy you two drinks," the other head said. "Four Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters - two for me and two for the mopey fellow in the pinstripes," the first head continued. He collected his two drinks and slunk off into the crowded bar, pursuing an attractive Altairian.

Getting blindly drunk would not help his situation in the slightest, he told himself. Still, it had been a while since he'd done it...maybe that would have changed. He could investigate...for scientific purposes, of course.

He downed both drinks.

As it turns out, it didn't help at all. It merely ended up with him staggering back to the TARDIS, shoe-less, tie on head, and with a bloody lip from merely mentioning to a rather large Xenion that his date seemed to resemble a Boeing 787. Very rude of him.

He scrabbled for his key, missing the lock several times before he successfully got the door open. He tumbled into the room and stopped short, staring at the center console. It was glowing a brilliant gold and the TARDIS' singing was unbearably loud. Usually she just hummed away in the background, a comforting melody that lived in the back of his mind. Now it was like she was shouting, bellowing the song as if trying to make someone far away hear it.

His drunken, confused mind scrabbled for what she was doing, trying to understand. Were they in danger? He didn't think so. The song sounded a bit desperate, like she was pleading with something. He had never felt her so focused and concentrated on something. What was going on?

He wanted to know, wanted to help but he was four banana daiquiris and two Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters past that stage. Instead he passed out face first on the floor but not before he caught two words lifting up from usually lyric-less music.

Rose Tyler.


	9. Planning

Jack didn't know how long they sat together like that with chippy life continuing around them but eventually he grew stiff from sitting in the same position. It was clear that Rose wasn't going to be the first to move so it was his job.

"All right then. C'mon. Time to get out of here," Jack said, his voice full of false cheeriness.

"Where're we goin'?" asked Rose, snapping out of her frozen position and making the first sounds she had made since finishing her story.

"We've got to find you someplace to stay, Ms. Tyler," Jack responded, bowing to her slightly and gallantly holding her jacket out for her to put on one sleeve at a time.

"Stay? But I thought..." Rose trailed off, confused. She figured he would want her stay at Torchwood so he could keep an eye on her. That's what she would have done. Much as she hated it there, she was willing to brave through it for Jack if that's what he needed.

"Rose, it's obvious that you have a rough time being anywhere near Torchwood and I don't want to make you uncomfortable. I meant what I said about not letting anyone hurt you but you're not going to get any rest in a place where you're constantly cataloging exits," he responded.

Rose blushed a bit at his observation. Guess she hadn't been subtle enough about all of that. She refused to be too embarrased by it, however. It was who she was now, good or bad and not an awful habit to have in the long run.

"I don't have any money, Jack. Pete's world used different money an' I didn't have much of that, anyway," Rose said quietly. She didn't want to ask charity from Jack, he'd already given her so much with his presence and his love.

"Aw, c'mon! What are friends for? I've got loads of money!" Jack replied, genuinely delighted. "I've been around for quite a long time and being from the future gives you a hefty leg up in the stock market," he said, waggling his eyebrows at her.

"Ah...once a freelancer, always a freelancer," Rose laughed. Jack led her through the streets of Cardiff, pointing out various buildings and statues to her as they wove their way through the city.

They stopped in front of a mid-range hotel with a spacious lobby and gleaming elevator doors and Jack led her up to the counter. "One room for milady, please," he said, flashing a winning smile at the clerk.

"Will you be needing two twin beds or one king size, sir?" asked the unfazed young man.

"Oh, just one bed," Jack let his voice drop an octave and he gave Rose his best seductive smile. She laughed and hit him on the shoulder and he responded by tickling her. The stoic clerk watched all of this with a bored expression and cleared his throat to hand over their keys.

Key cards in hand, Jack accompanied her up to the twentieth floor and walked in with her to collapse on the couch.

"So, I should get back to my team because I'm sure they're all absolutely DYING with curiosity about you," Jack said, watching Rose carefully again. She was sitting on the edge of the bed and looked exhausted. She kept flexing her right hand and her left leg was stretched out a little awkwardly, as though she were trying to find a position that didn't hurt it. He noticed she had been limping slightly, favoring the other leg and again he wondered what happened immediately before she fell into his world.

"Ok. Guess I'll see you in the morning then?" she said, her eyelids already beginning to droop..

"Yeah. I'll stop by tomorrow morning to collect you and then, Rose Tyler...we are going shopping!" If anything would snap her out of this funk, he knew those were magic words.

"JACK. I can't let you spend money like that. I'll make due with this until I figure something out," she protested.

"You can and you will, Rosie. It's not everyday a fellow gets his best gal back from another universe and certainly not everyday that he gets to spoil her with clothes shopping. Shopping, chips and then maybe some dancing? There's a great little big band club around here...reckon we could find some Glenn Miller if we look hard enough. Can't have you running around in a borrowed hoodie for the rest of your immortal life," he joked. "No complaining, no objections. I'll come back and get you in the morning. Still got your phone?"

Rose shook her head. She'd carried her "superphone" around for years even when the charge ran out and it was merely a bulky, boxy reminder of her past life. Torchwood had discovered they could use it to track her movements, however, and she'd been forced to dispose of it. It had almost been like cutting off her hand to let it go.

She still kept the tarnished, beaten TARDIS key on a chain around her neck, though. She had risked life and limb to get it back from Torchwood after they captured her but there was no way she was letting it go.

"Ok, then. I'll write my number down and you can call me on the hotel phone if you need me for ANYTHING. This is the number for Gwen, too. If you can't get me for any reason, she'll come help you." Jack leaned over and kissed her on the forehead, gathering her into his arms again. She sighed and returned the embrace but he could tell she was fading fast.

"Good night, Jack. And thank you for everything. I'm so glad I found you again," she whispered and curled up into a ball on top of the covers.

He pulled the corner of the blanket down and covered her body with it.

"Good night, Rosie. Sweet dreams," he said softly and slipped out the door.


	10. Inquiring

Jack took his time to wander back to the Hub and his team. Seeing Rose once again had stirred up feelings and memories he had hidden away, too painful to remember when the Doctor had abandoned him on Satellite 5. And when he'd seen Rose's name on the list of the dead at Canary Wharf...he shook his head. His grief had been unbearable.

Stumbling into them in the middle of the London Blitz had been the best thing to ever happen to him. He'd been drifting, lost in his own way after the mess with the Time Agency, and it had taken the simple faith of a shop girl, the prodding of a grumpy (and territorial) Time Lord and a near-apocolypse caused mostly (all right...entirely) by him to show that he had more to give than flash gadgets and a rogue smile.

They had saved him when he was hurting and now it was his turn. He had to figure out how to make all of this right. He didn't doubt that the Doctor would want Rose back...far from it if his experience with him at the end of the world had shown anything but she seemed so confused. And her new-found immortality would be quite the shocker for him as well. Well...he wasn't exactly sure how new it was, actually. How long had she been in the other universe? She had spoken of her younger brother's child and Mickey's retirement. 60 years? He'd have to ask her.

He sighed. He figured the shortness of Rose's life had been one of the deterrents for the Doctor to pursue anything more with her even though it was clear to Jack (and everyone else in the universe...Mickey, Jackie, Daleks, strangers...) that they loved each other they certainly hadn't done anything about it when he was around.

The sexual tension in the TARDIS could have been cut by a knife back then and it had driven him crazy. He wondered about the years they had spent together after he had gone but he figured nothing had changed. Once, after Jack had stolen the sonic screwdriver and "accidentally" locked the two of them in a cupboard for a few hours, the Doctor had pulled Jack aside and bellowed at him about Time Lord rules and customs, transient life forms, apes and the common courtesy of not locking up one's companions. Jack had ignored all the shouting, preferring instead to focus on his flushed face and the fact that both Rose and the Doctor had then disappeared to their separate rooms.

Now that Rose could live as long as him that should fix things, right? But he couldn't trust the Time Lord with that. If he knew the Doctor (and he did) the alien was going to cock it up somehow, feeling guilty or undeserving and pushing her away again. He didn't think Rose could take that right now. And he didn't know the reason behind Rose's reticence to see the Doctor again. Did something happen before they got separated?

He arrived at the Hub and rubbed his temples. Time to prepare for an Inquisition from a curious team. Sure enough, when he walked in the door, four curious and impatient faces were waiting for him.

"Where's Blondie?" asked Owen.

"I put her up in a hotel room for the night," Jack responded. Ianto raised an eyebrow and looked slightly offended and Gwen looked confused.

"Why couldn't she just stay here?" she asked.

Jack chose to ignore Ianto's expression and Owen's smirk and turned to Gwen. "She wasn't comfortable here and I think she needs a little space right now. Besides she was exhausted. She's not going anywhere," he responded, trying to sound a bit more confident in that assessment than he felt. Surely Rose wouldn't run now. "We're going shopping tomorrow," he announced. If any of his team thought that was strange, they kept it to themselves.

"So...who is she then? You travelled together, we got that, but it's detail time. Now," demanded Gwen. She was tired of not knowing things about the girl who was running around wearing her clothes. The few moments Gwen had seen her she'd been a mess of contradictions...she had looked so haunted and edgy but confidently and defiantly met their eyes like a soldier. She looked far too thin and bony but seemed strong and lithe at the same time. She didn't know what to make of her.

Jack launched into as much of an explanation as he could give them, without betraying Rose or the Doctor's trust. Some parts of their history were better left between the three of them, safety of the universe or not.

He told them about his cons, meeting them in the Blitz and how Rose had believed in him when he hadn't believe in himself, much as she had with the Doctor. He tried to explain their friendship and the relationship the Doctor and Rose shared. Their adventures all across the universe from distant planets to right here in Cardiff. Saving the world, being captured, rescuing and being rescued, an exciting life full of love and laughter.

When he got to Satellite 5 he faltered a bit. Some events of that day were still a little unclear to him and some were so vivid and clear it was almost painful to recall them. He told them about being trans-matted into the game shows and escaping.

He told them about finding Rose and the terrifying moment when they thought she had died. He shuddered and told them about the change in the Doctor...his dead expression, his single-minded determination, his aggression and how lost he seemed, hoping it might help them understand how losing Rose again might have affected him this time.

He told them about the Daleks and that Rose had managed to defeat them but he left the details out because even he wasn't sure what they were, exactly.

"So is she dangerous?" piped Ianto from his side of the couch.

"Rose? Of course not!" Jack automatically responded but then stopped to consider. Rose had changed...she was no longer the determined but innocent 19-year old she had been. Actually, she probably was dangerous. Very dangerous. But not to him. Not to them. "Not to us, anyway. She wouldn't hurt any innocent people." He could say that with confidence. He hoped.

"Speak for yourself," Owen called from the corner.

"Oh, shut it, you," Gwen snapped. "You're just touchy because she got the jump on you." She smirked at him and he scowled in return.

"What is she? Owen said she was telepathic so she's not human. She moves a bit strange, too. Too graceful or something for a human," Tosh spoke up for the first time. Jack smiled at her absently. Of course Tosh was interested in that.

"I'm not sure exactly. She was human when I knew her and I think she's mostly human now, but she's been through a lot of stuff," he said, firmly. Clearly not getting any more out of him than that, Tosh fell quiet again.

"Where did she come from and how did she get here?" Gwen asked, resuming the lead questioner role.

"Last time I saw the Doctor he said she was trapped in a parallel universe for good. It happened at the battle of Canary Wharf. I didn't get much out of him besides that, except that he acted like it was his fault maybe. He seemed pretty upset over it. She got here by jumping into her universe's version of the rift. Not sure why she did it, she wouldn't tell me."

Jack watched as a series of emotions crossed their faces. Everyone looked a touch surprised, Owen looked as if he thought that was the dumbest thing he'd ever heard, Tosh looked very interested and Gwen looked rather impressed. Ianto seemed lost in his own thoughts.

"That must have been really hard for them," Ianto said, quietly. Everyone turned to him and he blushed a bit. "I mean, if they love each other as much as you said...to be separated and trapped, knowing the other person was alive but that you couldn't get to them, couldn't be with them, couldn't tell them how you felt. Seems unbearable..." he trailed off and coughed awkwardly. Jack stared at him, warmth shining through his eyes. Leave it to reserved and observant Ianto to see through everything to the love story underneath.

"How long has it been, Jack?" Gwen asked.

Jack blew out a frustrated sigh. "Well...that's really hard to say, actually. Time travel and all. It's been...well, a very long time for me. For the Doctor I think it's been about two years. For Rose, I think it's been closer to 60," he said.

"60 years? That girl isn't a day over 25!" Owen said, incredulously.

"Alternate universe and not human, Owen," Tosh responded, rolling her eyes.

"Right. Another reason why we're not telling anyone about her being here," Jack replied.

"What're the others?" Gwen asked.

"For starters, she's technically dead here. The Doctor put her on the list of the dead at Canary Wharf. I thought she was dead for a long time," Jack said. Gwen reached up to pat his arm and he smiled at her thankfully. "And she's had a few not so pleasant run-ins with her version of Torchwood, so it sounds like so we don't need anyone poking around."

"We're not going to tell _anyone_?" Ianto asked, leaning on the word meaningfully.

"Yes. Anyone. And that includes the Doctor right now," Jack said, firmly. "I'm still trying to figure this situation out and Rose seems pretty confused right now. Even if he shows up, we're not telling him yet."

"Do you think that's likely? We haven't heard from him in quite some time," Gwen said.

"I don't know how he would know, but they always had some sort of connection. If there's a way to know that she's back in this universe, he probably knows," Jack responded.

"So let me get this straight," drawled Owen from the corner. Jack turned on him angrily but Owen didn't back down. He should have known Owen would argue. "If the most powerful man in the universe shows up on our door step looking for his long lost love who - from the sound of it could be the second most powerful thing in the universe - a girl you've already told us he went nutters over once, we're supposed to LIE to him?"

Jack narrowed his eyes and opened his mouth to speak but Owen strode forward and continued. "She goes with him and it's not our problem anymore. Why can't we just get this mess out of our hands and let him have his girl? "

"Because she's not just his girl!" Jack sputtered angrily. "She's mine, too!"

At that, four pairs of eyebrows shot up. Gwen and Tosh looked a little taken aback, Ianto looked a bit amused and Owen positively smirked.

"Not like that," Jack said, rolling his eyes. Not for lack of trying on his part, though.

"What? Not like it's out of the question for you," Owen leered at Jack.

"She's my friend, I love her and I want to do what's best for her," he continued.

"But who are you to decide that?" Owen pressed on.

"The only one she's got," Jack said, quietly again. Owen looked like he wanted to say more but Gwen elbowed him. Jack sighed and, deciding that he didn't want to answer any more of their difficult questions, turned on his heel and went off to his room, trying not to think about what tomorrow might bring.


	11. Dreaming

Rose woke up with a start, drenched in sweat and panting. Another night, another nightmare. It took her a few moments to remember where she was. Hotel. Cardiff. Jack. She sighed and looked at the clock. 2:00 AM. About three hours of sleep then. Not bad for her but not nearly enough. Her body still ached from being dragged back into life and her mind was exhausted, too.

Out of habit, she climbed out of the bed, checked the locks on the door and did a brief scan out the window. Merely Cardiff out there. She tried to remind herself that for once, she wasn't running from something.

She removed the sweat drenched hoodie and linen pants and flopped back onto the bed in the cami and knickers. Much better. She needed to fall back asleep but she knew the nightmares were waiting there, just on the edge of her subconscious, ready to ooze back in as soon as her eyes closed.

During her time with them, the Vergosan had taught her how to put her mind into a deep slumber to avoid the nightmares but she hadn't been able to use it for years, always needing to be on edge in case wherever she had finally collapsed from exhaustion was found. Years on edge, light sleep and running had only served to make the nightmares stronger.

Still, she was safe here, right? Her fighter's instincts screamed no. New place, new time, unknown threats but her mind was telling her to relax. There were no threats in this hotel and she had Jack. Jack had promised. The lure of a full night of peaceful sleep was overwhelming.

All right, then. She'd try it. Besides, Jack was sure to wear her out tomorrow. She smiled at that thought. A morning that she could look forward to! She felt happier and lighter than she had in a long time. Good. She could use that.

Concentrating on thoughts of Jack, she eased into the barriers in her mind, willing them to drop and fade away. All the pain, the worry, the regrets she carried so heavily on her thin shoulders shuffled to the back of her mind and faded into nothing, replaced by love and warmth. Love...it brought thoughts of him forward. Thoughts she banished during her waking hours. He felt so close to her. She sighed peacefully and fell into a much-deserved heavy slumber.

_

Far away, still passed out on the console room floor, the Doctor stirred slightly. It had been hours since his baffling experience with the TARDIS and his alcohol-fueled dreams had hinged on one Rose Tyler, not that dreams of her were an unfamiliar experience for him.

His thoughts, waking and in brief times of sleep, often focused on her but these were different. These felt more real, more substantial. He felt as though he and the TARDIS had been connecting with her somehow, drawing her back from the edge of something terrible, helping her...he didn't understand.

And now, her mind felt so close to his. Bright, shining and open as though he could reach out and touch it. Like she was here, back with him where she belonged. But even in his alcohol induced coma he knew it was impossible. He shoved the dream away. Too many times had he woken up, expecting to find her laughing face, her warm hand, her loving smile only to be greeted by emptiness. She was gone. Forever. No matter what she had promised and what he had believed. He drifted back into slumber, alone.


	12. Listening

The Doctor let out a loud groan, blinking at the far-too bright lights in the room and bounced up from the console grating. Well, he tried to bounce up. Mostly all he managed was a painful lurch and had to settle for dragging himself up using the console. The TARDIS hummed at him sympathetically. This had to be the worst hangover he had ever had in his entire life.

The TARDIS dimmed the lights for him a bit and he silently thanked her. Bleerily he took stock of himself. Let's see...shirt untucked, tie on his head, no shoes, lines on his face from where he had lain with his cheek on the grating all night and the worst headache in the galaxy.

A small paper cup with two pills and a glass of water appeared on the console in front of him. He wordlessly thanked the TARDIS again and quickly swallowed the Dentrassis hangover pills. Ok, much better.

He closed his eyes and checked the time outside the TARDIS doors. Around noon, local time. Now he needed a shower, a change and to go back into that bar and see if he could find his shoes. He was rather fond of the red Converse, after all, no matter what Donna thought. Maybe he'd grab a bite while he was in there and then figure out his next step.

Feeling much better after his shower and with a spring back in his step, he went back out to the console room.

The TARDIS was being rather quiet and subdued this morning as well, like she was tired for some reason. He patted one of the struts lovingly. "Rough night for the both of us, huh, old girl?" She hummed lightly in response.

"And what were you doing last night? I don't quite remember, but I think it was odd. Did we put together a puzzle?" That seemed like a strange thing to do while blindingly drunk, but it was possible, he supposed. "Ah well, I'll let you rest and I'll go see if I can find my shoes! Allons-y!"

He strolled out the door and into the alley beside the pub he'd frequented last night. When he walked into the nearly empty establishment, the bartender quirked his mouth and raised his eyebrows. "Feeling a bit better this morning, mate? You're looking awfully chipper for a guy who drank the whole bar under the table last night."

"Weelll, I'm just very impressive," the Doctor responded with bluster. "Have you, by any chance, seen my shoes?" The bartender smiled again and pointed up to the ceiling with one of his tentacles. Hanging from one of the rafters were two bright red Converse.

"How the devil did they get up there?" he asked, incredulously.

"Well...if I remember correctly, you were standing on a table giving a rather slurry explanation of inter-planetary gravitational pulls to the whole bar and thought you should provided a visual. One of the more interesting scientific explanations I've ever heard," the bartender replied with a belly laugh.

The Doctor frowned. "I don't suppose you have a ladder of some sort? If not, I probably have one lying around some place." To the bartender's interest, he started to rout around in one of the pockets of his overcoat. Tempted as he was to wait it out and see what kind of ladder this strange man could possibly have in his coat pocket, the bartender nodded.

"Got one in the back. Anything else I can get you?"

"Whatever the lunch special is and a banana, if you have one," the Doctor responded politely.

"One ladder, one banana and one special, coming right up," the tentacled man grunted and oozed off toward the kitchen.

The Doctor was once again alone now and his thoughts from last night returned. What was he going to do now? He could set the TARDIS and go back to Donna, three weeks later, immediately or he could wait it out a bit longer. He didn't think he was quite ready to face that yet.

For a brief period last night and this morning while he had been asleep, he had felt as if Rose's mind was close to his, closer than she had been in years. He had felt a little hopeful at that but it was impossible for her to be here. He sighed. Silly old Time Lord. It was probably just his loneliness playing tricks on him again.

He'd promised Martha not to bother her for a while and Sarah Jane had said goodbye properly the last time they had met. That only left...Jack. Jack was much easier to be around now that he had sort of gotten used to the "wrongness" of him and his playful, optimistic teasing sounded pretty good at the moment. All right then, he'd go and visit Jack once he had his shoes and his lunch.

Decision made and now bored, the Doctor turned his attention to the stringy alien folk singer on the small bar stage, strumming something that looked a bit like a lute for the meager lunch crowd.

_Lying there for all to see, under glass and under key,  
The Valiant Child slept on and on, her spirit and her laughter gone._

His head snapped up. WHAT?

_Virtue in a child so young, her stories told, her songs all sung  
Her gift to us a world of peace though with it all her breath did cease._

The song died away and the Doctor rushed to the stage. The alien regarded him with a bored expression. "Yes? In the middle of a show here," he said, sounding irritated.

"That song, where does it come from?" the Doctor asked, frantically. The alien seemed to take no notice of his unease and merely continued in his bored tone.

"It's just an old folk song. Think it came from Iriganus II. Rhymes are a bit labored but it's all right. There's another verse, some rubbish about light and singing but people seem to like the angsty version better so I leave it off."

"Can you sing it for me? The other verse, I mean." The Doctor was very edgy. She couldn't be dead. There were probably lots of legends that put those two words together. All of time and space, surely there were places that used "valiant" and "child" together and didn't refer to Rose.

"Why should I?" the singer responded stubbornly. He was a little annoyed at this man coming up and interrupting him. The strange man whipped out a piece of paper and muttered something abut being a talent scout for a record label. He straightened up immediately. "Of course, sir. But I have some original material that might interest you more..."

"No, no. The folk song's fine," the pinstriped man replied, flipping the wallet closed and placing it back into his pocket. He motioned for him to begin singing, seeming annoyed and flustered.

_For her life, all hope was gone with only memories to live on.  
Then with a flash of golden light she stepped forward out of night._

A song rang out, through time and space calling her back to this place.  
It called out, howled rough and wild, and brought us back the Valiant Child.

"Right then. The, uh, label will be in touch. Good show." Without another word, the man flew from the bar, leaving a confused bartender to return to an empty table with a banana, a plate of food, a ladder and a pair of bright red shoes hanging from his ceiling.


	13. Shopping

**Jack and Rose go shopping and Jack discovers one of Rose's darkest secrets. I sort of imagine the dress like this one (except with 2 sleeves) product-gs/435872936/DORIS_charming_purple_formal_wedding_ **

* * *

Rose was drug from her deep sleep by an insistent ringing near her head. She blearily fumbled around the night stand and her hand connected with the receiver of the hotel phone.

"'ello?" she groggily said, willing her brain to catch up with the rest of her body.

"Rose! You're awake!" Jack's bright, excited voice came across the line.

"I am now, yeah," she responded. She looked at the clock on the bedside table. 10:00 AM. Almost eight whole hours of sleep! That had to be a recent record for her.

"Good! I'll be by to pick you up in about half an hour. Sound good?" He was blustering about, excited to face this new day with her. Shopping!

"Sounds fine, Jack. I've got to shower and then we've got to go get coffee," she responded.

"Good plan. And Rose?"

"Yeah, Jack?"

"It's great to hear your voice."

"You too, Jack," Rose smiled into the phone.

She pulled herself out of bed and into a massive stretch. Her body was feeling much better this morning and even her hand and knee hurt less. It was going to be a good day. She grabbed the hoodie and trousers off the floor near the bed and headed to the bathroom.

She examined the hotel-provided toiletries and was delighted to find a razor along with the generic shampoos and lotions. How long had it been since she'd had a nice long, warm, leisurely shower? Or a bubble bath? She'd have to have a bubble bath tonight. No time for that this morning. She turned on the water and stripped off her borrowed clothes.

For a long few moments, she stood still and let the warm water cascade over her body, drumming away the residual aches and pains. She left the barriers in her mind down for a bit longer. When she was out with Jack, surrounded by people again, she'd have to put them back up but for now it felt wonderful to be free from the self-inflicted walls.

When she finally stepped out of the shower into the steamy bathroom, she felt delightedly clean and girly, spreading lotion on her newly-smooth legs and patting her hair dry with a fluffy hotel towel. She reluctantly pulled back on the borrowed clothes and went out to the garish couch to wait for Jack. While she sat there, she reconstructed her mental walls.

She didn't have to wait long. A few moments later, a brash knocking came on the door. Well that was polite of him. Jack had kept the spare key and she had expected him just to come barging in like he and the Doctor always had when they lived on the TARDIS. No sense of personal space, her boys.

She laughed to herself, remembering once how she had just come out of the shower and she had been bent over her wardrobe in very tiny pink towel when they had both rushed in, excited to tell her something. Jack had wolf-whistled and made some comment that she didn't think bore repeating and the Doctor had turned so red she thought he could have matched his color-choice jumper of the day. After that, he had been much more careful about knocking but Jack had, of course, continued to come in unannounced and perhaps even increased the frequency of his entrances, much to the Doctor's annoyance.

She looked through the peep hole in the door and was greeted by a very large blue eye. She laughed again and pulled the door open.

"Hello, gorgeous!" Jack greeted her and pulled her in for a bone-crushing hug. "Ready to shop?"

"Always!" she responded. "But coffee first."

"Thought you were a tea girl?" Jack teased.

"Oh, I still am. But Pete's world was very big on coffee so I sor' of got used to it," she responded. That and she had gotten used to the caffeine buzz to keep her moving when she'd much rather have lain down and given up.

Coffee in hand, she and Jack strolled through the streets of Cardiff on their way to St. David's Dewi Sant, the local mall. Jack chattered to her, telling her stories of his life after they had parted ways, making her laugh and teasing her. She was glad that he was taking on the main focus of the conversation, happy to listen to him and keep from answering any tough questions. She knew he would want details eventually but he could sense she didn't want that today and she loved him even more for it.

"All right then, sweetheart! Here we are! Boots, Debenhams, Bhs, everything a girl could want!" Jack spread his arms wide and grinned at her. "Where should we start? Oh! I know! UNDERWEAR!" He waggled his eyebrows suggestively at her.

"Jack!" Rose whined, drawing out the 'a' in his name. "I am not letting you help me pick out new knickers."

"Ok, fine. You pick 'em out and I'll wander over to mens. Come and get me when you're done. Or...if you change your mind about my expert opinion," he drawled to her, purposefully raking his eyes up and down her thin form. She laughed and hit him on the bum, sending him sauntering away to Debenham's menswear.  
The knickers and bra shopping took a bit longer than she thought. It had been so long since she had bought new clothes and her body had changed so much she found she had no idea what size to wear. The saleswomen hovered around and one offered to size her but Rose declined. The last thing she needed was some stranger seeing her naked and asking questions.

Finally happy with her decisions and with about a week's worth of underthings in her shopping bag, she walked over to menswear to find Jack. She was unsurprised to see him leaning on the counter, flirting shamelessly with the tie clerk. After dragging him away and convincing him out of another pair of tight leather pants (honestly, how many pairs of those did a bloke need?) they made it to the womens department.

"So, Rosie, what are we looking for? We're building your wardrobe from the ground up! You can be anything you want!" Jack said, twirling her around the clothes racks. Holding up a plaid skirt he said "Sexy librarian?" Then a skimpy leather vest "Biker babe?" Then a flannel button up "Farmer's daughter?"

"Honestly, Jack. Are you going to pick out anything that doesn't make me a sex object?" Rose said, chastising him but with laughter in her eyes.

"Nope, don't intend to!" Jack laughed. This was fun.

"Jeans, maybe some dress slacks and some long sleeve tops," Rose replied, firmly. "Wouldn't mind a hoodie or two."

"But Roooooosee! That's no fun! Why would you want to cover all that up?" he said, gesturing to her body amply, emphasizing the "that". Rose just crossed her arms and glared at him. He pouted back at her but then broke eye contact and started to shift through the racks. "Ok, ok. You win. You pick some things out and I will, too. And I'll play by your rules," he added when she raised her eyebrow at him. He got a laugh and a hug out of his cooperation.

Arms full of potentials, he and Rose found their way to the dressing rooms back in the corner of the store. "Ok. Go on then! Try 'em on! And I want to see," he said firmly, wagging a finger at her. "I'm paying and I at least want the floor show." Rose stuck her tongue out at him and pulled the curtain shut behind her.

He listened to the light rustle of clothing behind the curtain and reflected on their day so far. He had successfully managed to keep the conversation light and focused on himself (really, he was pretty expert at that anyway), giving Rose the freedom to relax some. She had barely been checking around her at all and he had only caught her making escape plans twice.

A jumper-clad arm appeared through the curtain, holding out a pair of jeans. "These are bit too big, Jack. Seems I've lost weight since I last went shoppin'. Think you could find me a smaller pair?" Rose's muffled voice emerged from behind the curtain.

"Sure thing," he replied, glad to have something to do other than stand outside the door. As he wandered back to the women's department to find the jeans, his eyes settled on a beautiful lavender dress. It was high waisted and had flowing purple sleeves. The neckline was high, as Rose had requested but it was off-centered. She would look fantastic in that but he didn't understand why she wanted such a modest outfit to go dancing tonight. The Rose he knew had often worn outfits on evenings out with him in alien night clubs consisting of barely enough material to cover the necessary bits, to his delight and the Doctor's dismay.

Dress and jeans in hand, he walked back to the dressing rooms. "Rose, found the new size and a dress," he announced, barging through the curtain in a fashion reminiscent of his old days on the TARDIS. The sight in front of him made his breath catch and he almost fell backward out through the curtain.

Rose was standing with her back to him, in the process of pulling on a new shirt. When he walked in, she had frozen, back stiff and breath held. His eyes widened as he took her in. Her back was literally covered in scars, some deep, some shallow, some old and some new, criss-crossing over each other and forming grisly artwork across her skin. He shuddered and didn't know which frightened him more...evidence of alien torture tools he recognized or ones that he didn't.

"Rose...what?" he managed to get out. He reached a hand forward and ran it lightly over the markings that scoured her back. "Turn around," he said quietly.

Silently, eyes on the floor, Rose obeyed. He sucked in a breath as she slowly turned and he saw that the marks continued across her front, up and down her arms, across the pale skin of her taut stomach and harshly marking the lines of her too bony rib cage. His breath turned into a hiss as his eyes traced an all-too familiar Y from shoulder to navel. "Is that...?" he trailed off, unable to voice it, to say it out loud.

Her eyes met his. "Yes," she said quietly.

"Torchwood?"

"Yes," she said again, her voice carefully devoid of emotion.

"Were you...?" he trailed off again.

"Awake? Alive? For the most part, yes," she replied again.

He gathered her into his arms, whispering apologies into her hair, burying his tears there. "I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry, Rose," he repeated over and over again. She merely stood, arms trapped in the jumper between them and let him rock her back and forth, his words and emotions washing over her again and again. She wasn't sure how long they stood like that but they were forced out of the melancholy moment when a loud knock came from outside the curtain.

"Only one in the dressing room at a time, thank you very much," came a curt voice from the other side. It sniffed and continued, "This is not Top Shop," then strode on its way out of the dressing room. They stared at each other for a moment, not sure what to do, laugh or cry some more and so Jack slipped out through the curtain and slid down the wall on the other side.

Oh, God. She said she'd been captured a lot but to have endured all of that and to still be, well, Rose. Owen must have seen it too. Maybe that's why he had been so eager to get rid of her. She was obviously something dangerous. No wonder she seemed so apprehensive all the time. And Torchwood. That thought made him sick enough to retch a little. How could they? How could anyone...?

Rose emerged a few moments later with some jeans and jumpers over her arm and the lingerie bag in hand. "Think these will do for a while," she said. "And the dress. It's lovely," she said, smiling down at Jack encouragingly. Obviously she wanted to move past the moment in the dressing room. Jack didn't know if he could. Mutely, he nodded and got to his feet.

They silently walked to the cashier and Jack paid for their purchases. Carrying her bags, Jack wordlessly guided them to a sandwich shop just outside the mall for lunch. Neither of them seemed to know how to breach the new-found silence and it hung heavy between them.

Rose sighed audibly and Jack raised his head to look at her, trying to keep his eyes from drifting down to her collarbone and what he now knew lay beneath the borrowed hoodie. "You've been great, Jack an' you deserve to know everything but I can't relive it yet," she said. "I just want to try an' move on here, make some sor' of life and, more than anythin', go dancin' with you tonight. Can we do that?" she ask, almost pleading softly.

"Of course we can, Rose," Jack said, patting her hand on the table. "Are you sure you're up to it though? I noticed that you've been limping," he said, with concern in his voice.

"I'll be all right as long as we don't do anything too strenuous. It's feeling a bit better today, anyway," she replied. "I broke that left knee not too long ago," offering him a little bit of information.

"Not too long ago meaning?" Jack prodded.

"Uhmm...well...yesterday," she answered, squirming a little.

"When you fell in the Rift?" Jack asked, frowning.

"Jumped. Not fell," she corrected him. "Scooted, maybe more accurately. And no, it was before that."

"Scooted? And yesterday?" he repeated, dubiously. "And you want to go dancing tonight?"

She grinned at him slightly. "Well...you know. Superior immortal human biology," she said in her best impression of their first Doctor. Jack laughed softly and suddenly the balance between them was restored. They had a lot to talk about but for now, this would be enough.


	14. Dancing

Jack walked her back to the hotel and left her with some money and instructions for the evening. He'd come back by and pick her up around six, they'd go to dinner and then out dancing. She should wear the new dress and prepare to have the time of her life, he said with a wink.

They both tried to ignore how Jack's eyes kept drifting to her collarbone and how he kept gripping her arm possessively as if he could erase everything he had seen by keeping a tight hold on her now. He reluctantly left her at the door to the hotel, anxious to let go of her now that he had seen a glimpse of her bleak past.

Too afraid to let his thoughts wander on the long walk to the Hub, Jack hailed a cab outside. He leaned his forehead against the window of the cab and willed himself to forget what he had seen in the dressing room, but he couldn't escape the images that kept slipping back in.

He was glad for a moment that the path between his universe and the other was broken because he would surely have gone through and torn that Torchwood apart with his bare hands. Not to mention what the Doctor would do when he found out. Oh, God. The Doctor. What would the Doctor do when he found out? Jack shuddered.

There had been a rare few times on their adventures together when Jack had seen the Doctor truly turn into the Destroyer, body rippling with power, eyes blacker than night, completely devoid of any humanity, voice echoing and terrifying and it had usually been when Rose had been threatened. And it had always taken Rose to bring him back. He hoped that the pathway between universes was really closed, otherwise there would be a Storm coming for those bastards that they could not hope to weather.

Arriving at the Hub, Jack put on his best happy leader face and strode in, cocky assurance taking the place of his dark thoughts. "Gwen, Owen! Get cleaned up and find your best togs. Double date. We're going out dancing!" he called. The two of them groaned, loudly.

"What? Why do I have to go?" Gwen complained. "And, more to the point, why do I have to go with him?" She gestured in a vague, disgusted manner toward Owen.

"I'll have you know that I am a very talented dancer," Owen responded. "But I echo the sentiment. Why do I have to go? Can't you and your creepy blonde girlfriend go on a date alone?" he whined.

"She's not creepy, she's not my girlfriend and you're going. That's an order," Jack said calmly. He and Rose needed a buffer tonight and a bickering Gwen and Owen seemed like the best one he could think of.

"Why don't they have to go?" Owen pointed over to where Tosh and Ianto were very pointedly staring at their computer screens and ignoring Jack.

Jack sighed and turned to them. "Tosh, Ianto...do either of you have the slightest interest in going dancing tonight?" Jack said patiently.

"Not at all," they responded in unison.

"There, you see? Now, hop to it. We're picking Rose up at six," Jack answered. He turned on heel to head off to his room for a shower and to dust off his best suit. Rose deserved a wonderful evening and he was going to give it to her.

Feeling very smart and freshly showered, Jack preened in front of the mirror in the control room. It was still a bit early to go pick up Rose and Gwen and Owen weren't ready yet. He did look very fetching in this blue suit. He could even pull out his old greatcoat. Maybe he should pick her up some flowers or something. He was lost in thought when a slight cough from Tosh made him turn around.

"Um, Jack?" she said uneasily.

"Yes?" he replied, impatient to get back to his preening.

"Did you ever figure out what you were going to say to the Doctor about all of this?" she asked.

"No, not yet," he responded, frustrated. Why was she bringing this up now?

"Well...you might want to think of something fast," she said. "A blue police box just appeared on the South side of the Hub."

_

Rose stood in the doorway of the hotel and watched Jack disappear into a cab. It would have been easier if he hadn't found out about the scars but she also felt a little relieved to have shared her burden with someone else. She again felt grateful for his love and compassion but she had also felt his revulsion and anger seeping through her mental link with him. Not revulsion at her but at the other Torchwood. The anger had been palpable and she knew he would defend her fiercely, tear apart the other Torchwood if he could and she was a little afraid of that anger. It reminded her too much of the Doctor and what he might do if he ever found out.

What would he do? She had seen him in the throes of his darkest moments...would he be able to handle this? Would he still want her, broken as she was? Mentally she had a lot of barriers to overcome still and physically...she could barely stand to look at herself in the mirror. How could he possibly want her now? She wasn't completely convinced he had ever wanted her like that in the first place but there had been glimpses, a heated look, a hug that lasted too long, lingering hands and then on the beach...she had stupidly told him that she loved him and he hadn't responded.

And then, like the child she had been, she had clung to the faint fairytale hope that he would come and get her. That, even though he had said it was impossible, one day he would show up and sweep her back to the world where she belonged. What was 'impossible' to her wonderful Doctor? How many times had they done the impossible?

How many times had her thoughts and dreams lingered on him? How many times had she lain, beaten and bruised in an alien prison, fevered mind imagining him rescuing her, screwdriver buzzing, fingers waggling, manic grin spreading across his boyish face, only to wake and find that she was alone and that no one was coming to save her.

She walked across the street and into Boots, using some of the money Jack had left her to pick up some makeup, hair accessories, pretty purple nail polish and bubble bath. Tonight was for getting dressed up, having fun and forgetting. She could do that for one night, couldn't she? Of course she could.

Right after a nice, long bubble bath.

_

Gwen and Owen chose that moment to arrive back in the control room.

"Trouble in paradise?" Owen asked mockingly, straightening his tie and checking his hair in the mirror as Jack had done moments before.

"Not a word out of any of you," Jack snapped as he watched the screen, unsurprised, as the familiar lanky form of the Doctor casually pulled out his screwdriver and bypassed all of their security to take the lift down. He didn't look angry or agitated. In fact, though it was a bit hard to tell on the grainy security monitor, he looked a bit sad.

Five Torchwood breaths were held as the lift doors opened and the Doctor stepped out. If he found it unusual to be greeted in this manner, he hid it quite well, offering Jack a manic grin and shoving his hands in the pockets of his brown overcoat.

"Jack! Hello! Fancy meeting you here!" he said, quickly crossing the room and holding out a hand to Jack, which was accepted and then exuberently shook.

"Hey, Doc. To what do I owe this great honor?" Jack smoothly greeted his friend, determined not to let anything slip by. If the Doctor didn't know about Rose yet, he could wait a little longer.

"Weeeellll...no reason, really. Was in the neighborhood and just thought I'd pop by and see an old friend," he said, his eyebrows waggling on the word old, grinning mischievously at Jack.

A dark haired man in a fancy suit the Doctor didn't recognize interrupted before Jack could respond. "Sure you didn't come for any specific reason?" he asked, harshly.

The Doctor frowned and rubbed the back of his neck. "Don't think so, no. The TARDIS needed a bit of a top-up (had a rough night yesterday) but mostly I thought I'd just come and see Jack. Why? Have you been having a spot of trouble lately?"

"Oh, just some odd things coming through the Rift lately, that's all," the man responded before being elbowed by a woman the Doctor remembered being called Gwen.

"Really?" he responded, pulling out his glasses and turning to peer at the computer screen nearest him. "What sort of things? I love a good mystery. And not just the kind in books. Although, I quite like those as well. Did I ever tell you that I met Agatha Christie, Jack? In a library of all places. Lovely lady. Bit eccentric, though." He was too busy with his characteristic ramble to notice the venomous look Jack shot the dark-haired man or the way the rest of the team shifted uncomfortably.

"Weevils," Jack responded quickly.

"What?" the Doctor asked, peering up at him and frowning slightly.

"We've had a lot of run-ins lately with Weevils," Jack responded.

"Oh," the Doctor said, looking disappointed. He had been hoping for a grand old distraction. "Well, I suppose Weevils can be a bit odd," he said kindly to the dark-haired man who opened his mouth to speak again and promptly got his foot stomped on by Gwen. My, she was a violent girl.

"Actually, Doctor, we were just on our way out. Big double date for the evening," Jack said, gesturing to himself and the other dressed up couple who seemed to be having silent, angry words with each other in the corner. Jack was watching the Doctor's face carefully. It fell slightly and he saw the loneliness reappear for a moment.

"Right, yes. Should have called beforehand. Always doing that...just showing up places unannounced. Generally serves for a better entrance that way," he blustered, trying to cover up his disappointment.

"But I should be back by about 11," Jack continued quickly. Obviously this friend was hurting too and he was going to have to do his best to help them both. "We can catch up then, ok? Tosh and Ianto can keep you entertained for the next few hours."

The Doctor raised a silent eyebrow at him. "What?" Jack asked, defensively.

Chuckling to himself lightly, the Doctor said "You're going on a date that will end at 11? Don't your dates generally last a little, uh...later in the evening than that?" His team snorted with laughter.

"This version of you certainly is cheeky," Jack responded with a little laugh himself.

"I can keep myself entertained until you get back, Jack. Don't hold back on my account," the Doctor responded, giving Jack his best knowing smile.

At that, Jack nearly choked. If only he knew what he was saying...Jack laughed to himself, imagining his first Doctor allowing him, no, _encouraging_him to have a romp with Rose. If he could see this now, Jack was sure the leather clad one would step through the Vortex and throttle this pinstriped scrawny boy for even suggesting it, albeit unknowingly.

Jack checked his watch. Time to go pick up Rose. "All right, then Doctor. I'll keep that in mind. See you later tonight. Tosh, Ianto, be nice to him. Doctor, be nice to Tosh and Ianto. And no giving away any hard-earned Torchwood secrets," he said, with a pointed look at his guilty-looking team members.

_

Rose was waiting for them down in the lobby of the hotel. Jack smiled at her, genuinely delighted to see her like this. She looked beautiful in her lavender dress, hair pulled up off her neck in an elegant bun with a few strands hanging down. She still looked far too thin and it was a little obvious that her make up was covering the dark bags that seemed to live under her eyes now but she looked more like her old self than she had since he had seen her yet.

She gave him a shy smile as he kissed her hand and she and Gwen easily fell into a familiar female exchange over dresses and make-up. Dinner was an easy affair, the four of them falling into an easy pattern. Well, the three of them with Owen sulking. Gwen discovered that she quite liked this girl. She seemed so kind and compassionate and was easy to talk to, even if her habit of checking around her every few minutes made Gwen a bit jumpy.

Finally, about halfway through dinner, she did something that made Gwen like her even more. Rose turned turned to Owen with a slightly exasperated look on her face. "Are you going to keep looking at me like that all night?" she asked, more that a bit annoyed.

"Like what?" Owen responded defensively.

"Like I'm going to blow up or somethin'," Rose said curtly.

"Are you?" he countered, with an evil glint in his eye.

"No, I'm not. But if you're not going to be any more useful to the evening than sit there an' be rude, I might as well put you back to sleep again so the rest of us can have fun without you," she said, winking at Gwen out of the corner of her eye.

Owen blanched a bit and then laughed with her. He promised to behave himself for the rest of the evening. Dinner a success, the four of them left the restaurant and headed to Jack's favorite big band club.

Jack felt a tug at his hand as he led Rose out to the dance floor. "Jack, can you put my room key in your pocket?" Rose asked. "No pockets, no purse an' it's getting a bit uncomfortable where it's at," Rose blushed a bit.

"Where is it?" Jack asked, knowing full well the answer, but wanting to see Rose's cheeks blush with color again. She punched him lightly, turned away to pull the sharp, plastic key card from the top of her dress and placed it in his outstretched palm. He chuckled, deposited it in his pocket and swept her close into his arms. The two of them swayed together to the familiar music, remembering times gone by...clock towers, invisible space ships and champagne on the Thames. Hours passed and eventually the band gave its final call. Sad as she as for their evening to end, Rose's knee was beginning to ache and she was feeling very sleepy.

The club was just down the street from her hotel and so Gwen, Owen and Jack walked her back before heading home themselves. She and Gwen exchanged a light hug and even Owen allowed himself to be pulled in, although he seemed a bit wary of her hands. She gave him a pat on the back of the neck just to see him jump and to make them laugh. Jack pulled her in for one of his familiar, bone crushing hugs and placed a light kiss on her forehead before pressing the elevator button for her.

"Good night, Rosie," he said, lingering while they waited on the elevator. He knew he should tell her that the Doctor was here, that they should make plans for the future but she seemed so peaceful right now. Surely it wouldn't hurt to let her have this evening. He could sort it out tomorrow morning.

"'Night, Jack," she said, the words lost in an enormous yawn. He laughed and pushed her lightly into the opening elevator doors. She stuck a hand in the shiny, closing doors suddenly, forcing them back open and looked him straight in the eyes, another one of the burning, soul-searching gazes that he felt in his blood. "Thank you," she whispered, before removing her hand and letting the doors shut between them.

He sighed. One friend mended for the evening. Time to go face the other. Jack bustled Owen and Gwen out the door and into a cab. He suddenly felt as though he needed to get to the Doctor as soon as possible. Tosh and Ianto were not the best secret-keepers in the universe and he could only hope they held out under the charm of this chatty Doctor for the past few hours.

"I think you're doing the right thing, Jack," Gwen said suddenly from the back seat of the cab. He twisted around to see her sincere face smiling at him in the semi-darkness of the cab.

"Well, I still think you're nutters," Owen replied. "But I can see why you care about her so much," he continued. "She's something special, isn't she?" he said.

Jack glanced out the window at the dreary, Cardiff evening.

"Yes," he said quietly. "Yes, she is."


	15. Confessing

Jack walked back into the Hub to find the Doctor sitting on the couch alone, fiddling with his screwdriver. Tosh and Ianto were no where to be found and he lightly assumed that they had been worn out by the Doctor. Gwen and Owen said some polite good nights and left as well, leaving only the two of them in the control room.

Jack waltzed over to the couch and collapsed on the opposite side from the Doctor, removing his coat and tie and draping them across the couch in between them. He saw the Doctor's nose crinckle up suddenly and watched as he took a deep breath in through it. Puzzled, Jack watched as the other man's face took on a sort of blissful quality replaced quickly by confusion and then as he shook his head, looking angry with himself. Well, that was odd. But then, the Doctor was always odd.

"So, Doc what really brings you here?" Jack asked cautiously. "You're not one to just 'pop in' to say hello to people. And where's...," Jack thought for a second, trying to remember the name of the fiery woman he had met the last time with the Doctor.

"Donna?" the Doctor responded, sniffing lightly. "She's at home for a holiday with her family," he said, not looking Jack in the eye.

"Ah. She's not travelling with you anymore, then?" he said. He felt bad for the Doctor. So he was alone again.

"Weelll, technically she still is. Got her hatboxes still, you know," he responded. Jack wasn't sure what exactly to make of that comment but the Doctor continued on anyway. "Not for long though. Met her future husband while we were out at a bar yesterday," the Doctor responded sadly. He was trying to feel happy for Donna, he really was but she had been such a good mate and he was going to miss her something fierce.

"Her future husband? How do you know?" asked Jack. He received one of the Doctor's patented, long suffering "dribbled on your shirt" looks in return. "Right, right, superior Time Lord biology," he muttered under his breath.

"What was that?" the Doctor asked vaguely, twirling the screwdriver. Honestly. He could be so thick sometimes.

"So you were feeling lonely and decided to come visit me? I'm flattered, Doc," Jack said, lowering his voice and scooting a little closer to the other side of the couch.

"Just to visit!" exclaimed the Doctor, jumping up from the couch, his voice raising to an unnatural high. Jack just laughed. This Doctor was so easy to goad. In response, the Doctor narrowed his eyes and collapsed back on the couch. "Very funny," he said, his voice back in a normal range.

"What's bothering you, Doc? It's not just that you're lonesome. There's something else going on in that giant Time Lord brain of yours," Jack said. The Doctor sighed in response, moved his head to his hands and mumbled something into his lap. "Sorry, didn't catch that, Doc. Going to have to say it again."

"It's Rose," the Doctor said, more forcefully this time and raising his eyes to meet Jack's. If the statement didn't catch Jack off-guard the look in his eyes certainly did. There was such an unmasked amount of grief and sadness and longing shining out from the sea of dark brown that it physically hurt Jack.

"I miss her so much, Jack." His voice broke a bit and, to Jack's surprise, he saw tears on the Time Lord's cheeks. "And I think it's driving me a bit mad. I think I see her everywhere. I'm always reaching for her hand. Last night, it felt like her mind was so close to mine I could reach out and touch it. And now, even though it's impossible, I think I can smell her on your coat." Dammit. Jack had forgotten about his bizarrely accurate senses.

"I don't know what to do. Sometimes I feel like I can't possibly go on without her. And then I feel guilty because she's probably out there living some fantastic life and all I want to do is pull her from it. But I can't. I tried everything I can think of and I can't get to her. For once, impossible means impossible for me." Jack watched silently as the other man rose and paced back and forth in front of the couch.

"And then I worry...what if she's not? Living a fantastic life, I mean. What if she's hurting, Jack? Or dead? What if she's dead and I could have saved her? I think that would kill me." From the sound of his voice, Jack believed him. How would he handle what had happened to Rose? She had been hurt and he could see clearly now that the Doctor would blame himself.

"And you know the worst part, Jack? She told me that she loved me," he said with such wonder that Jack again marvelled at how a man so brilliant could have possibly missed something so fundamental. Wait, was that the worst part? That she loved him? Jack opened his mouth to respond but the Doctor waved his hand and continued,

"When we got separated, I found a way to say goodbye and she told me that she loved me. And you know what I said?" His voice had taken on a low, hollow tone and he looked at Jack expectantly. Jack merely shook his head.

"I said 'Quite right to'," he said, spitting the words out as if they were poison. "And then we ran out of time and I didn't tell her. I wasn't good enough to save her, wasn't good enough to get her back and wasn't even good enough to tell her that I loved her. I'm useless. Totally useless." He pulled at his wild hair and looked so beaten, so distraught that Jack didn't know what to say or do. He fingered the keycard in his pocket and tried to figure out what to say to the despondent man in front of him.

Wait...key card?

* * *

Rose leaned against the wall of the elevator feeling happier than she had in a long time. She was tired but it was the good kind of tired, the kind that comes after a day well spent in happy pursuits, not running for your life. She smiled to herself. Unless it was the running for her life she had done with the Doctor. Those had been happy pursuits...some of the happiest she had ever known. Funny how those two things could correspond.

The elevator pinged and she stepped off, limping slightly toward her door. Maybe all the hours of dancing had been a bit much on that knee but it had been worth it. She stuck a hand in the top of her dress and felt around for the key card. Not finding it on the first try, a bit frantic, she searched again. There wasn't much of anywhere it could have gone in there...oh. She had given it to Jack to hold.

She sighed and wondered if the clerk would let her in. No...it had been a different man at the counter, a surveilliance observation she had made out of habit. She sighed again and wandered back to the elevator. She could call Jack on the hotel phone but he had already done so much for her tonight. She hated to drag him out of bed to come all the way back here with the key. Good thing she had some cash tucked away in her top. She'd have to take a cab over to the Hub and get it back from Jack.

If the cab driver thought it was odd to drop off a woman in a formal evening gown on the north side of the square at midnight on a Tuesday, he didn't act like it. He merely accepted the money she fished out of her top as elegantly as possible and drove off. She walked over to the Hub, input the codes Jack had given her and waited for the lift to come. She rubbed her temples. Maybe she could take another bubble bath tonight when she got back.

* * *

Jack pulled the card from his pocket and looked at it in horror. The Doctor, caught up in his misery, didn't seem to notice. If Jack had Rose's key and she hadn't called him for it, that could only mean that she was on her way here. He hoped fervently that she had managed to sweet talk the clerk into letting her into the room.

Right on cue, he heard the lift begin to shift and he let out a small groan. The Doctor, awoken from his dark reverie at the sound and Jack's groan, frowned and turned with Jack toward the lift.

It was all Jack could do to hold his breath and wait for the doors to open.

Two supernatural forces were about to collide in his control room and all he could do now was watch.


	16. Clinging

The Doctor frowned and turned slightly to face Jack. "Jack, are you aware that there is a very heavily shielded telepath currently coming down your lift?" he asked, pulling his screwdriver from his pocket and noticing Jack's tense demeanor.

"Doctor, there's something I've got to tell yo-," Jack started to say but he was cut off as the doors of the lift slid open and four hearts stopped beating.

Time seemed to stand still as the Doctor watched Rose and Rose watched the Doctor and Jack watched them both. Finally, the lift doors began to slide shut, cutting off their eye contact. The Doctor made a strangled noise in his throat and desperately surged forward, shoving his lean body through the narrow opening of the door and disappearing from sight.

Jack heard the whir of the sonic screwdriver and walked over to collapse on the couch again, resigning himself to being locked out of the lift. He'd sit and wait, not knowing which friend would need more help when the lift doors opened again.

The Doctor, never taking his eyes off Rose, pointed his screwdriver at the lift panel, shorting it and ensuring that the doors would not open again. She was here. Wasn't she? He was being overwhelmed by all the things he'd so desperately missed about her for all these years: her intoxicating scent, her hazel eyes, her achingly familiar features. Things he had filed away and carefully examined over and over again, afraid that he would forget her and so, forget himself. He longed to sweep her into his arms, to feel the comfort of her warm body against his but he couldn't seem to move. What if it was all a dream, again?

It was always a dream.

Rose hadn't moved from her position leaning against the back corner and hadn't taken her eyes from his. Or breathed for that matter. The lift doors had opened and there he was. She had spent so long trying to block thoughts of him out, only to have the come charging back in at the slightest notion...a word, a phrase, a picture, a memory. She had long ago given up the ragged, war-torn dream of ever seeing him again and now here he was. Staring at her. Was it a dream?

It was always a dream.

Or a nightmare.

She finally let out a shuddering breath, her lungs demanding the air her emotions had been denying them. The sound seemed to waken the Doctor, who stepped forward toward her as if in a trance. "Are you real?" he asked, quietly, trying to decipher if she was merely the evanescent seraph that had so often visited him in his impossible dreams or something more, something for which he hadn't dared to hope for years.

Perhaps she should have been offended that the first first thing he had done was doubt her existence but she wasn't. For she had been plagued with those same futile fantasies since the moment she had lost him. And now those eyes, the ones that haunted her dreams, sometimes fathomless brown and sometimes iridescent blue, were now gravely searching her own, as if sure of her inevitable betrayal and disappearance.

"Yes," she whispered softly and then he surged forward, enveloping her in his arms, pressing his long, lean body against hers, as if desperate for as much contact with her as possible. His arms cradled her back and her face pressed against his chest, listening to the wild rhythm of his hearts. He was feverishly whispering melodic words in soft musical tones she didn't understand in her ear and she clutched his shoulders, just as desperate to prove to herself that he was here. That he was real. That he would never leave her again.

Minutes, hours, days, lifetimes could have passed as they clung together and they eventually, somehow, ended up on the floor of the lift, limbs tangled impossibly together. It was Rose that drew away first, unraveling their legs, suddenly aware of the painful position of her knee trapped underneath their bodies. The Doctor made that strangled sound in his throat again as she moved further from him and he scrabbled for her, reaching out to fiercely take her hand, gripping it painfully. "Don't leave me. Please," he said, the pain in his voice outstripped only by the pain in his eyes.

_Never_she wanted to reply, but a painful catch in her memory taunted "Never say never ever" and tears which had only just subsided resurfaced and she once again buried her face in the lapels of his coat. Oh, that coat. That familiar coat and his familiar smell. As if reading her thoughts, he held her tighter and pressed a kiss into her hair. She could feel his frantic breathing and the drop of his own tears on her face. Eventually the tears stopped once again, breathing evened out and three hearts fell into sync with each other once more, as they always had, as they were meant to do.

"I want to ask, Rose. I want to know how you're here, how you got here but I'm afraid. Afraid that as soon as I question it, as soon as I think about it too hard, I'll wake up and you'll disappear. You can't disappear, Rose. I need you," he whispered into her hair, in English now. "I missed you. I missed you so much. Don't leave. You can't leave. You have no idea what it's been like for me," he babbled. At those last words, he felt Rose stiffen in his arms and suddenly felt her anger rear up in his mind. Momentarily blindsided by mental connection like he hadn't felt in decades, the physical sensation of her throwing herself away from him didn't register until it was too late for him to keep her held against him.

She let out a hollow laugh and he looked up, surprised at both the un-Rose-like sound and to see her suddenly towering over him. "No idea, Doctor? You think I have no idea?" she said, her voice a dangerous calm he didn't like at all. "How long has it been, Doctor?" she asked.

He stared at her, unsure of himself and of her. It was suddenly like she was a different person. A cold shiver passed through him. What if she was? What if he was? Maybe they would no longer fit together as they always had. But it couldn't have been too long for her; she looked the same as when he had said his final goodbye to her on the beach. Thinner, more tired and rather underfed and unhealthy looking but overall the same. Frowning, he looked her in the eye again. "In human time? Four years, 39 days, 17 hours, 9 minutes and...12 seconds. Plus a year that never was," he added quietly. He could have given it to her in any number of time calculations from all across the universe but they all amounted to one, inevitable sum: too long.

Something strange was going on here. He tentatively reached out to her mentally and met with an iron shield. The only indication of his actions was her slight flinch, as if he'd poked her and she hadn't been expecting it. She shouldn't have shields like that. She shouldn't be able to make mental contact with him at all. Her mind against his felt familiar in a way he didn't understand but certainly not familiar in the overtly emotional human-y way she had before. He felt the urge to lean forward and lick her, just to see if he could figure out this new mystery but the look on her face kept him away.

She didn't question his last statement or his count and instead gave the hollow-sounding bark of a laugh he'd heard moments ago, a laugh that sounded dangerously like the beginning of a sob. She averted her eyes from his and now, instead of feeling her anger, he felt her sadness and grief. He moved forward to catch her hand but she pulled it away from him, twisting her fingers together. Confused, he stepped closer to her and bent his head to catch her eye. She slowly brought her face up to his, eyes closed, and he moved his hands to her cheeks, noticing how sunken they seemed, cupping her face in an achingly familiar gesture. She looked ill.

"How long has it been for you?" he asked, willing her to open her eyes. When she did, the pain there was so raw, he dropped his hands from her face as though he had been burned and staggered back from her. She watched with even sadder eyes. "Rose?" he prodded after a deep breath. "How long?"

He watched as a lone tear wound its way down her immersed cheeks, onto her chin and then fell to the fabric of her beautiful lavender dress. "Seventy-five years," she whispered.


	17. Snarling

**Things go south in the lift and Jack is once again caught in the middle.**

* * *

_"Rose?" he prodded after a deep breath. "How long?"_

_He watched as a lone tear wound its way down her immersed cheeks, onto her chin and then fell to the fabric of her beautiful lavender dress. "Seventy-five years," she whispered._

"What?" he exclaimed and she almost smiled at that familiar expletive. "How? Rose, it's...there has to be a mistake," he continued, running his hands over his wild hair.

"S'not a very nice thing to say, Doctor. I'm right here," she replied. Was it his imagination or was there a glint of humor there?

"How?" he asked, peering at her like she was some great unsolved mystery. He'd done that before, many times. Humans...always a curious mystery. Especially this one.

But seventy-five years. It had to be a mistake. She couldn't possibly have waited seventy-five years.

"I don't know," responded Rose in that dead-calm voice again. He had that damned screwdriver out and if he was going to shine it in her eyes she was going to knock it from his hand. She was feeling strange. He'd tried to connect with her mentally and she'd made sure her shields were fully up. He didn't need to see everything that she'd done. He would never want her after that. And she was feeling very ill all of a sudden.

The Doctor took in her response quietly, studying her movements. He recognized the words for what they were: a mask, a defense. His usually became faster and higher-pitched, meant to distract and confuse. Hers were simply saying "Back off". He wasn't about to do that.

"Rose, I don't understand. That can't be right. It just can't be..." he trailed off. Even if it was right, he didn't want to believe it. His dear Rose. Seventy-five years. He had nearly gone mad at four.

"Are you sayin' I don't know?" she snarled suddenly and he took a step backward. "That I can't keep track of my own time since I can't give it down the nanosecond, like you? That it was any easier for me?" Her head was beginning to throb. Something was going wrong.

"No, no! Of course not! It's just..."

"Impossible?" she spat out and he looked at her sharply again. She was building up a wall, an emotional wall all around her and he didn't know how to circumvent it. This wasn't Rose, his Rose. He would have kissed her by now. Isn't that what he had been planning all these years? Instead he was faced with a snarling stranger. Seventy-five years. He couldn't imagine...

"Let me out of here," Rose demanded suddenly, breaking him from his reverie. She needed to get away from him, away from here. Her body was beginning to act strangely and she was beginning to panic.

"No," he said, stubbornly. They would figure this out. And he was NOT losing her again.

She drew a deep breath as if to yell at him again and then, just as quickly it fell away. "Please," she said quietly and one of his hearts broke in half. "I just need my keycard from Jack." Demanding hadn't worked. Time for feminine wiles.

Wait. Her dress. Jack's suit. The smell of her on his coat. Jack's nervous behaviour. The double "date". The other heart broke and with it, his temper.

"Were you ever even going to tell me?" he yelled and she flinched again. She could see his sense of betrayal looming in his mind. "I see. How couldn't I see? You and Jack just waltzing around Cardiff. Were you laughing at me, you two? Content to let me wander the universe, mourning you for the rest of my lives when you were here all along?

"Doctor -" she started, and if he had been in a clearer state of mind he might have heard the pain and the hurt in that one little word. But he was not. Couldn't he see that she was hurting, too?

"Did he tell you? Did he tell you what he was?" he snarled, backing her against the wall and suddenly her hackles were full up. Backing Rose Tyler into a corner was NOT a good idea. Parallel Torchwood could have told him that.

"Were _you_ ever going to tell _me_?" she threw the words back at him, ignoring his question. Her head hurt and he was pushing all the wrong buttons. "Tell me that he was alive? You LIED to me, Doctor. You told me he was dead. You abandoned him, WE abandoned him. You gave up on him! Did you do that to me, too? Did you give up on me?" she demanded. Torchwood, her brother, all lies. She was tired of lies.

"No! Not to you, never to you!" he desperately called back. This conversation was quickly getting out of his control and he didn't like it.

"Doesn't that sound familiar," she replied caustically and it was his turn to flinch.

"I couldn't be around him, Rose! I was still weak from my regeneration and...he's wrong. He can't die. Well, no, that's not right. He can die. He just comes back to life again. That shouldn't happen. He's a fact, Rose. A perversion. A bump in Time that shouldn't exist. Do you know what it's like for a Time Lord to be around someone like that, someone who can't die? It's horrible, it's never meant to happen. Even the TARDIS can't bear it..."

Each of his words hit her like slaps in the face. He didn't mean to, he didn't know, he wasn't thinking. Always that mouth, out of control. And with each sentence went her hope. The small, tiny one she'd clung to all these years, worn, scarred and battered - much like her- the one she'd pretended never existed because it was easier that way. Easier to think that if she didn't hope to get back to him, didn't hope to one day laugh and love beside him, that living this life alone would be more bearable.

She'd been wrong.

He was panting and had just begun to register the broken look on her face and the pained position of her body when she made a swift move that shocked him. Like a trained soldier disarming an opponent, she moved forward, twisted his wrist back against him, grabbed the screwdriver and pushed him into the opposite wall with a thud. The lift panel sprung back to life and the doors swung open.

Jack rushed to his feet and looked into the lift in confusion. The Doctor was standing against the back wall holding his right wrist and looking surprised and Rose had stormed out like a hurricane with his screwdriver in hand. Dammit. He had known this was going to go south.

"What happened -" he started but Rose cut him off.

"Keycard, Jack," she said calmly in a voice that left no room for disobedience. "That's what I came here for."

The Doctor walked out of the lift, still looking dazed and she turned and tossed his screwdriver back to him as though they hadn't just had a huge row, as though she hadn't just nearly broken his wrist, as though they were strangers and she was merely returning a handkerchief he'd passed her. He stumbled to the side, down the ramp and collapsed in one of the chairs in front of a computer, his head in his hands.

"Rose, is he all right? What's going on? Are you all right?" Jack asked, his eyes darting between the two of them. The Doctor looked shocked and Rose looked determined...but sick.

"Keycard," she demanded again.

"No," he responded and he saw fury flicker behind her eyes before it was replaced with the calm sea of hazel again. "I'm not letting either of you out of my sight until we straighten this out."

Rose sighed heavily and he watched as her face transformed again, resigned and perhaps remorseful. "You're right, Jack," she said, drawing him in for a hug, her hands resting on his waist. "He's just feeling a little overwhelmed. Maybe you should go check on him," she said, smiling sweetly at him and pushing him gently in the Doctor's direction.

"You're sure you're all right?" he asked, his eyes searching her and finding only the calm hazel.

"I'm fine," she replied and Jack turned down the ramp to where the Doctor was sitting, cradling his arm and looking shell shocked.

Suddenly, the sound of the lift shifting made them both turn in surprise. Jack scrambled in his pocket and found it empty. "Fuck," he swore. "She stole the card from my pocket." The Doctor had come charging up the ramp, screwdriver out but it was too late. They watched on the monitor as Rose's form disappeared into the darkness.

"Out of my way, Jack," the Doctor said much more calmly than he looked. With Rose out of his sight, he looked wild-eyed and his hair sticking out at impossible angles.

"What did you say to her?" he challenged, not to be intimidated by the scrawny alien.

"None of your business," the Doctor snarled back. "Out. of. my. way."

"Maybe we should let her cool off-" Jack started and suddenly found himself slammed against the wall, struggling, with a strong, insistent hand on his throat looking into the most terrifying eyes he'd ever seen. They were black with rage and something, Time itself, perhaps swirled in the void there. It was so easy to forget sometimes that this Doctor was the man he used to be, hidden behind the glib charm and easy words, but he was there and so was the fury of the Time Lord. Rose had brought it out. And only she could silence it.

"Either you help me find her, Harkness, or so help me, you will get the FUCK out of my way," he said, each word dangerously echoing through the control room.

"Ok, ok," Jack choked out and the Doctor released his hold, Jack sliding to the floor at his feet. "We both want what's best for her, Doc," he said, hoarsely, massaging his throat and looking up at the terrifying form of his friend towering over him.

Something flickered in those black eyes and then Jack found himself looking into infinitely sad, familiar brown instead. The Doctor looked down at Jack, almost surprised to see him on the floor, and offered a hand up.

"I lost her once, Jack," he said, quietly. "I won't do it again."


	18. Running

The doors to the lift closed with a resounding clang. Rose pounded the button with her open palm and then collapsed painfully against them, closing her eyes. She wasn't feeling well, wasn't feeling right. She felt as though she didn't know who or what she was. Her body convulsed again and she nearly lost hold on the lift rail. It felt as though her head was exploding. Or imploding, perhaps.

Bleerily, she opened her eyes and looked around. What was she doing in this lift? Snapshots of dancing, of Jack, of _him_ flashed through her mind and she pushed them away. Not possible. The Torchwood logo above the buttons on the lift caught her eye and her insides turned to ice even as her mind burned. She cried out again as another painful wave swept through her body and the doors to the lift swung open. She didn't know where she was or how she'd gotten there and so she did what she did best.

She ran.

Rose took off across the square and skidded to a stop at the closest street. Night. That would help. Harder for people to follow her at night. She chose a left-hand alley and seamlessly took off running again. What was she running from? She wasn't sure. But if Rose Tyler was good at anything, it was not being caught when she didn't want to be caught. A glance up at the corner gave her sight of a CCTV camera. Damn. Those always made things tricky. But she always did love a challenge. At least, she normally did. Her head twinged again and she doubled over in pain, closing her eyes and coughing.

This pain was disorienting...worse than that inhibitor drug the Judoon had used on her but her body was taking over, switching into autopilot. She ran again, staying out of sight of each camera, skirting streets with intersection cameras and ATMs. She ran and ran until the run turned into a jog and then a walk and finally a stumble. This wasn't right. She knew it wasn't right. She should be able to run for kilometers. Hours, if she wanted. They were going to get her.

Who was 'they', again?

She didn't remember.

She needed to take cover and let this, whatever it was pass. She chose a secluded side alley. Large dumpster to hide behind, narrow enough that she could scale the wall if she needed and a fire escape nearby, low enough that she could grab it at a slight run and high enough a normal human would be hard pressed to follow.

Closing her eyes, she coughed and felt her body try to expel whatever it was again. It wasn't working. It was like something was fundamentally wrong inside her. Inside her head maybe.

She collapsed on the sticky pavement behind the dumpster and let the darkness fall around her. Fevered visions of golden energy and pain drifted in and out of her consciousness. When she opened her eyes again, she was laying face down in the darkness of that abandoned alley. She felt around her and tried to assess where she was but her head wasn't working right. It was fuzzy.

She drug her left wrist over the pavement toward her head, expecting to feel the heavy band of her teleporter there. It was usually the cause of these baffling, painful landings somewhere unknown. Memories threatened on the doorstep of her mind. No, no. She didn't want to relive it again. But the darkness took hold of her again and she had no choice.

-

_Running. She was running again. And it was painful, painful running. How long had they had her? Six months? Seven? The new scars and deep, jagged wounds covering her body spoke of those months in captivity. They had not been pleased with her, especially with her refusal to help them. She'd given up being rescued long ago and then, there was Torchwood! Who'd have known? Torchwood, coming to rescue her. Since Pete had died, she figured they'd signed off on her and she'd given up trying to contact Mickey._

Torchwood had come blazing in guns alight and tempers drawn. The Sycorax had overstepped their bounds one too many times and she didn't pity them anymore. She'd heard the rescue team before she'd seen them, felt the comforting press of Mickey's mind against hers, calling out to her. At first, she'd thought she'd imagined it. Mickey? He'd been out of the field for years. No reason for him to be here in a Sycorax prison, storming in to save her like it was the old days.

Once released, she'd left the fighting up to the agents and taken off running toward Mickey's comforting presence. He'd been thinking her name, shouting it almost and she had followed. Closing her eyes, she mentally pulled up the map of the building Mickey had sent her and stumbled around the corner. Instead of seeing a Torchwood ship, however, all she saw was a cupboard. Confused and starting to panic, she turned to run back out but a strong hand reached out from the cupboard to drag her inside. She started to yell and bit at the hand covering her mouth but soon relaxed as she recognized him.

Mickey. Good, old, strong Mickey.

"Jesus, Rose!" he hissed into the darkness. "You bit me!"

"Sorry, Mick. Didn't know who you were," she whispered back, apologetically. It had been so long since she'd seen him. He'd grayed some more and, from what she could tell in the small space, put on a few middle-age pounds but his grin, what she could make out of it in the semi-darkness of the cupboard, was the same as always.

"S'alright. You always were one to fight dirty," he said, affectionately. "You smell horrible," he finished, teasingly.

"Oi! You try spending seven months in prison without a shower," she responded.

"Been there, done that. Yeanial, 2013, remember?" he snickered and she smiled back at him. His hands moved to her waist and then traced up her back, checking her injuries. She hissed and bit back a groan of pain. "You're bleeding everywhere," he frowned.

"I'll be all right as soon as we get out of here. Which reminds me...why are we in this cupboard instead of on a ship getting the hell out of here?" Rose asked.

"You're not getting on one of those ships," Mickey said fiercely, shifting around to drag something out of his pocket and putting it on her wrist.

"What? Why not?" she asked, confused. "Rescue mission, right?"

He looked at her sadly and, for the first time, she saw the pained flicker in his eyes. "Not exactly. Retribution and retrieval," he responded.

"Retrieval?" she asked, frowning back him in the darkness. Retribution for Pete, she figured but the Sycorax hadn't taken anything besides her. Retrieval missions were used to recapture goods or, more recently with policies Pete would never have allowed through, lifeforms that had either been stolen or escaped from Torchwood.

"They know, Rose," Mickey said seriously, fiddling with the settings on the watch-like device he'd settled on her wrist.

"What are you talking about, Mickey? Know what?" she asked, her heart dropping to the floor.

"About you," he said, looking her right in the eyes.

"How?" she hissed,

"They've been getting suspicious for years. And with Pete gone...they broke Jake, Rose. Brought him in for questioning, dosed him heavy. He fought like a maniac. They...they paid a Thrizax to go into his head," Mickey continued, the pain and fury in his voice evident. The Thrizax were a nasty, telepathic mercenary race that took pleasure in hurting other species. Rose had tangled with them a good many times. "Took everything they wanted and then just left him, damaged. He doesn't remember anything. Barely knows who he is."

"How is Ross?" Rose asked, quietly. Ross was Jake's husband, a soft-spoken, gentle man Rose had always loved.

"Heartbroken," Mickey replied. "Jake's basically an invalid, almost a vegetable now. Doesn't even know who he is. Torchwood gave him some severance pay and tossed him out the window. I don't think Ross knows the truth."

Anger flared in Rose. How dare they.

"I know, Rose, I know," Mickey said. "But we can't do anything about it now. Torchwood's been taken over. New management. Almost all of the old guard has been let go or has quit over the new policies. I'm about the only one left. Things are bad, Rose. And they're only going to get worse."

"What're we going to do?" Rose asked, the snarl in her voice evident. He knew how dangerous she had become and being in this small space with her fury was terrifying even when it wasn't pointed at him.

"Nothing," Mickey said forcefully. "I know you've never listened to me in your whole life, Rose, but you've got listen to me now. Don't go near them. They...they're horrible Rose. I've seen what they've been doing to the aliens that are unlucky enough to get captured nowadays. No more helping little lost species home. No more diplomatic missions. No more second chances," he said. "Stay away, Rose."

"Fine," she said, not quite believing him but seeing that she needed to agree. "So what are we going to do now?"

Mickey made one last adjustment to the machine on her wrist. "That's my teleporter. Finished it yesterday. It's...not foolproof...didn't have time to get it done properly, but it'll do for now."

"Ok, then. Let's go," she said, taking his hand.

"No, Rose," Mickey answered sadly. "There's only enough power to take one person. Besides...you'll need a distraction. They're getting closer."

"No, Mickey, no!" she exclaimed. "I'm not leaving you behind! We'll steal one of the ships. Just like the old days, yeah?"

"They'll have figured out that I helped you now. Nothing left for me back there."

"What about Martha? And the kids? You've got a lot more to live for than I do," she said, fiercely, trying desperately to drag the device off her wrist. She wasn't going to let him do this. Not for her.

"They're safe. I faked a car crash that 'killed' them months ago and hid them on Talania IV back when they took Jake. They're happy. Remember how much Martha always liked that place? Could shop there for days, she always says. Torchwood won't be able to find them," he said firmly as though the matter was resolved.

"But...Mum. And Tony!"

"Your mum's safe. Even Torchwood couldn't touch her with a ten-foot pole. She's too powerful. And stubborn," Mickey said with a smile, drawing her hands away from the teleporter. "As for that pathetic snivelling lump of a brother, they'll never touch him. He's worthless," Mickey finished caustically.

"You can't do this, Mickey. I won't let you. I'm not worth it," she said, tears welling up in her eyes fighting against him in the small space to dislodge his hands despite the pain of her injuries.

"You are, babe," he said, kissing her gently on the forehead and keeping a firm grip on her hands. "And...someone's got to protect the Earth. Earth's going to need you...hell, the universe is going to need you since they don't have Torchwood anymore."

Her head rose sharply as the sharp minds of the Torchwood agents came closer to their hiding spot. "They're coming, aren't they?" he asked, quietly.

"Yes," she answered. "You can't do this, Mickey."

"I can," he said and the fire she had seen when he had first come to this world and seen that he could be more than the tin dog rose up again. "Do you remember what you said to me just before you and the Doctor left me here in this universe the first time?" he asked, ignoring the way she flinched at the mention of the Doctor's name. The Torchwood agents were closer, honing in on the cupboard. She could sense their thoughts, their excitement at catching her, their adrenaline.

"I said 'What if I need you?'," she whispered, the selfishness of the words taunting her again.

"You did," he responded, letting go of her right hand to tip her chin up to look him in his deep, soulful, loving brown eyes. "You didn't then. But now you do," he finished quietly.

With that, he drew his gun, threw open the door to the cupboard and smashed one of the buttons on her wrist device. She heard the sound of shots being fired, of surprised yells, and of pained gasps as she felt a painful jerk somewhere around her navel and then, suddenly, she was face down on the pavement somewhere with blood-stained clothes and a tear-soaked face for the first of many times. 

Gasping, she awoke from that memory, just a few moments later. Where was she, again? Suddenly, she was flashing through her life, flickers of the things she'd done and the people she'd known passing by in whirlwind of joy and pain, of love and regret. The reel ended with today. Jack. The lift. The Doctor. The pain in her head hadn't left, only multiplied.

Wouldn't parallel Torchwood have been surprised? They had threatened her often enough, tried their best to figure out how to kill her, for good. She snorted. If only they'd known all they had to do was transport her back to her correct universe, reunite her with her best friend, let her assault her long lost love and then make a mad dash to die alone in alley. Because this felt different. She'd died a good many times but this, this was different.

Somewhere far away she could feel him reaching out to her and she could hear the TARDIS calling to her but she couldn't respond. In the confusing jumble of her head, she let her shields fall and made one last desperate plea for him and then the darkness fell.


	19. Searching

"It's ok, Doc. We'll find her," Jack tried to reassure the despondent but determined Time Lord standing beside him. A Time Lord who, just seconds ago, had held him by the throat against the wall of his own control room. Sliding into the nearest computer chair, he snuck a glance over at the Doctor, who was pulling at his hair and pacing.

"I can't feel her. I should be able to feel her. I could always feel her. Something was odd, different about her in the lift but I don't know what. Her shields were far too heavy. And her emotions were reaching me. Rose can't do that. Shouldn't be able to do that. Always was doing what she shouldn't, though. Jeopardy friendly, that one," he muttered, more to himself than to Jack. Jack wasn't even sure he knew what he was saying as he fiddled with his screwdriver, tapping it on his lip.

"I'm going to pull up the CCTV's in the area and see if we can get a visual on her," Jack said, typing madly away at the computer. As if he could hear trouble brewing from the other room, Ianto silently appeared in the control room and nudged Jack from the seat.

"I can do that," he said, softly, eyeing the manic, still muttering Doctor nervously. Jack smiled at him gratefully and squeezed the quiet man's shoulder before turning his attention back to the screen.

"There!" Jack exclaimed and the Doctor's head whipped up to see Rose skid into view on the monitor screen. It was difficult to make out details in the grainy, distant camera view but they watched as she doubled over in what looked like immense pain. The Doctor stumbled a minute and Jack reached out a reassuring hand to grip his shoulder, both of them missing her cough.

"Something's wrong, Jack," he said. "We've got to find her." They continued to watch as Rose straightened, looked directly into the camera, still wild-eyed and then disappeared.

"I can't find her on any other camera in the area, Jack," Ianto said evenly, scanning through screen after screen. Jack nodded tersely. He had been expecting that. One didn't survive on the run for long without a working knowledge of avoiding things like street cameras. And from what he could piece together, she'd been on the run for an awfully long time.

"Keep searching, Ianto. And come up with a map of routes she could have taken from that first camera," Jack said before turning back the Doctor.

"All right, Doc. Since you're obviously not going to tell me what you said to her enough to piss her off like this," he said, matching the fiery gaze of the Doctor, "Answer me this...you're saying you really can't find her?" he asked, a bit incredulously. When he'd traveled with the Doctor and Rose it had always seemed like the Doctor had some sort of Rose-magnet. He'd even accused the incredibly possessive man of lojacking her once. It had been damn useful with Rose's propensity to wander off but that Doctor, gruff and private as he was, had never explained his bizarre ability to find her to Jack and he had very quickly learned to stop asking about it.

"I can't. I can't feel her, I can't find her. I could always find her before, Jack, could trace her mental signature...all soft and pink and human-y and_Rose_. But it's...changed. Last night I felt her but it was different somehow..and now...I can't find her. Plus she's got these massive shields up. I've never seen shields like that before. She shouldn't have shields like that. I can't trace her," the Doctor responded, pulling at his hair again.

"Ok, ok. Stop messing with your hair, Doc. It's too great for you to pull it all out," he tried teasing, flirtation and humor his defense mechanism but he was met only with a withering look. "Have you got something in the TARDIS of hers? Since you can't do a mental trace, maybe we can do a biological one," Jack said, brusquely, all business, moving toward another computer.

He watched as the Doctor reached deep into one of the bigger-on-the-inside pockets of his brown overcoat and drew out a neatly folded purple jacket. He caressed it softly before reverently handing it over to Jack, whose eyes softened. "After all this time, Doc?" he asked, tentatively, gently taking the jacket from the Time Lord's outstretched hand, touched that this powerful, alien man had done something so simple, so sweet, so _human_.

"Always," he said, quietly, his sorrowful brown eyes burning into Jack's.

Feeling tears well up in his eyes suddenly Jack turned abruptly from the Doctor. Sometimes he seemed so foreign, so alien and sometimes...he was just another bloke in love. "Never pegged you for a Harry Potter fan," he said, stepping aside as the Doctor ran his screwdriver over the precious jacket and then pointed it at the computer screen. They both waited with baited breath and...nothing happened.

Jack made a frustrated noise while the Doctor looked back and forth between the jacket, his screwdriver and the screen as if trying to figure out some fundamental problem with the circuit. "That doesn't make sense. It should have worked. Maybe the trace is too old..." he trailed off, risking another glance at the Doctor who was starting to pull at his hair again. He needed a newer trace. Oh! Good thing Owen never cleaned up the MedBay in a timely fashion.

Jack disappeared from the control room for a moment and the Doctor barely noticed. She'd been here, right here and she'd somehow slipped through his fingers. Where had he gone wrong? What had happened? He wasn't even sure. He wondered what Jack would do if he simply used the lift and took off in the darkness after her. No, that was silly. Torchwood had resources that could help him find her quickly. Of course, so did the TARDIS. He had just been moving toward the lift when Jack appeared triumphantly, holding what appeared to be a bloody rag in his hand.

Jack excitedly motioned for him to scan the rag, no, shirt. It was definitely a shirt. Or, something that formerly resembled a shirt. But if that was a shirt and Jack wanted him to scan it...no. No, no, no. He didn't believe it. He wouldn't believe it. That couldn't be her blood on that shirt. No human could have survived that much blood loss. The acrid, iron smell of the blood was mixing in with the scent of her on the shirt and it had the same reaction it had always had on him, whether he wore leather or wool. He wanted to rage and hurt the person who had hurt her or cry or at the very least, throw up.

Looking up from the computer screen impatiently, Jack turned his eyes to the Doctor and opened his mouth to question him...and then he saw the Time Lord's face. Those huge despondent brown eyes were darting over the bloodied shirt and his mouth was opening and closing repeatedly, forming what Jack thought was 'No' over and over again. Damn it again. He hadn't thought about what effect seeing that shirt would have on the Doctor. It was good thing he hadn't brought the jeans out as well.

"How?" he asked weakly. "What happened, Jack?"

"Honestly, I don't know," Jack responded, reaching a hand out to steady his friend again. "That's what she was wearing when she fell through the rift yesterday."

"Fell through the rift?" he asked. That was impossible. And she'd only appeared yesterday? So she and Jack hadn't been hiding from him. More apologizing for him to do if they found her.

When.

When they found her.

"Yes. She just...appeared out of thin air after a massive wave of energy swept through the Rift. My team found her on the street. She wouldn't tell me the particulars of what happened before she got here. Doc, you've got to scan this shirt," Jack pressed quietly. The Doctor waved his screwdriver over the horrible piece of clothing and then pointed it at the screen again, before ripping his eyes from the offending article. He couldn't bear to look at it any longer.

Jack swore again as the computer scan results came back negative again. That didn't make any sense.

"It's not working. Let's try finding her on foot, ok? Ianto, stay here and see what you can find. Any progress, call my phone," he said, pulling on the Doctor's arm and leading him toward the lift. "Doctor?" he questioned, pulling the unresponsive man through the lift doors. The Doctor snapped out of his dark reverie and nodded at Jack.

"Right. Can't have gotten too far on foot," he said but Jack could tell from the sound of his voice that he didn't believe it for a minute.

A terse silence fell over them as the lift shifted upward and Jack's thoughts fell back on the bio scans. Why hadn't they worked? Even if the Doctor's sample had been too old, the other one, fresh from her injuries before appearing on Jack's doorstep certainly should have registered. He fought through the memories of his conversation with Rose in the chip shop, trying desperately to remember anything that might help. Maybe she'd found a way to block her bio signal similar to the way she was blocking the Doctor from tracing her mentally. Maybe she could change that signature when she wanted to. But she couldn't possibly change her fundamental biological structure. He thought through her description of dying.

Or could she?

The doors swung open and the Doctor instantly surged out, brown coat tails billowing behind him with Jack struggling to catch up. "Doc, wait! I think I might have figured it out," he said, trotting alongside the Doctor.

"Talk and walk, Jack," the Doctor growled, determinedly heading for the street corner where they had last seen Rose on the CCTV. "Actually, talk and run preferably. Or jog at least."

"If I used something from one of your previous regenerations...your leather coat, say...would I be able to trace you?" Jack asked.

The Doctor swung his eyes toward Jack and even in the darkness, Jack could see his annoyance flashing dangerously there. He did NOT like talking about regeneration and especially not about the man he used to be. "No," he responded tersely. "New biological data."

"Doctor, wait. Hold up a second," Jack panted, reaching out a hand to tug on the coat. Apparently he was out of shape and not used to running with the Doctor anymore.

"This had better be important, Jack," the Doctor snarled, pulling up short but not looking at Jack, instead swinging his head to look up and down the abandoned street as if he might catch a glimpse of Rose.

"It is," Jack said. Apparently Rose hadn't gotten around to telling the Doctor about her newfound immortality. Of course. And Jack hadn't had a chance to discuss with her his theory on the matter. Oh well. In for a penny, in for a pound. "In a perfect situation, you should hear this from her and not me, but we're far from a perfect situation so here it goes: Rose can't die. Or, more specifically, she dies and then comes back to life," he blurted out quickly, not missing the way all the blood drained from the Doctor's face at his statement, the dim lamplight only serving to highlight his pale, drawn features.

"What?" he asked and that one little word held so much. His mind reeled. No, no, no, again. And what he'd said to her in the elevator...no wonder she'd been so hurt. But Rose wasn't like Jack. He would have felt it. He would have felt how wrong she was. But she hadn't felt wrong. In fact, she had felt right. Oh, so very, very right. Even more right than she ever had before. "But she's not...she's not like.." he sputtered.

"Not like me?" Jack said tersely, unable to keep all the hurt out of his voice.

"Jack, I didn't mean -" the Doctor started.

"You did, actually," Jack responded with a heavy sigh. "But this isn't about you and me. It's about finding our girl. And you're right. She's not like me. She told me what it was like when she comes back to life. It's all golden light and rebuilding and singing." He watched the Doctor's face carefully. "Sound familiar?"

The Doctor felt as though he had been punched in the solar plexus. All the air had left his lungs and even his bypass system was having difficulty keeping him conscious. It did sound familiar. Impossibly familiar. There was no way.

"Explains why we couldn't trace her," Jack said quietly, knowing his friend was processing the information even if he looked as though he was going to pass out.

"But it's simply not possible, Jack. Rose is human. As human-y human as they come...all warm and emotion-filled and worried about wonderful silly things like painting her toenails. And even if you're right and she's, that she can, I mean, she can't...she still looks the same. She can't have changed her biological structure like that and kept the same physical appearance. That's not how it's done. It's impossible," he said, hands back in his hair again.

" 'There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy'," Jack quoted and the Doctor raised his head up to look Jack square in the eye, memories of Charles Dickens and Rose in a beautiful dress washing over him abruptly. He'd underestimated her then, too.

"And this is Rose we're talking about. Since when did she ever believe _anything_ was impossible?" Jack continued sincerely.

That was true. He'd convinced himself that he could never be happy again and she'd cracked his armor, melted his hearts and saved him. He'd sent her away, ready to die so she could live and she'd come back and saved not only him but the entire universe. He'd told her it was impossible to get back here, he'd given up hoping that he would ever hold her hand again...and yet here she was. Somewhere.

Desperately, he reached out to her with his mind, hoping that she would feel his caress and his call and respond if she could. Distantly, he felt the TARDIS calling to her as well. Bless his ship, she had figured it out already.

Suddenly, the Doctor's head whipped to the side and he took in a deep breath through his nose. The acrid smell of Time and raw energy berated his senses at the same time he felt Rose's shields crash down and heard her desperate response. He knew that call. And he knew that smell.

"You're right, Jack," he said, amazed, taking off at a full tilt run, running as he never had in his entire life, in all of his lives, toward the smell and his precious, impossible girl.

"Right about what?" Jack asked him, running at his side and skidding around a corner to follow him closely.

"She's just regenerated," he said, not even trying to keep the awe and fear from his voice. He closed his eyes for a moment and honed back in on her same but different mental signature. It wasn't very difficult now. The energy she was radiating was pouring off her in dangerously terrifying waves. He needed to find her. Quickly.

Before something else did.

"And?" Jack panted, struggling to keep up as the lanky Doctor made another hairpin turn down a side street.

Turning down a narrow alley where they could just see a lavendar-clad leg on the far side of a large dumpster, the Doctor strode forward to pick up the limp form of Rose from behind the dumpster just as she emitted another golden-energy laden cough.

The Doctor turned back to him, looking over Rose's unconscious body grimly and Jack shivered.

"And it's gone a bit wrong," he said, taking off through the deserted streets once again toward the TARDIS.


	20. Fixing

**The Doctor and the TARDIS try to fix what's wrong with Rose in the Zero Room.**

**The mystery builds! Bit of a short one but the next should be up really soon. Thanks for sticking with me!**

* * *

"Doctor, what's happening?" Jack shouted at the back of the tan-coated blur barrelling through the street in front of him.

"We need to get to the TARDIS," the Doctor responded tersely, slightly out of breath himself. He was using all his excess energy to force his legs to move faster, to propel himself to the TARDIS sooner. He could feel Rose's brain collapsing, synapses frying. Losing consciousness was a bad sign. Regenerations were tricky business and so many things could go wrong...especially in these days with no Gallifrey, no Eye of Harmony and no Time Lords.

Well, just one Time Lord and a rather defective one at that.

And a regeneration would be especially tricky for a human/Time Lord hybrid or whatever Rose was now, one with no training in the regeneration process, no Gallifreyan biology lessons, no TARDIS and no support.  
What was Rose now?

Not completely human, that was for sure. Her mind was wide and open like a Time Lord's, telepathic pathways branching out in all directions, reaching for him even in the chaos but her Time sense was a confused jumble as if it had just suddenly exploded in her head. The regeneration energy flowing off and out of her in waves, much as it had in his transition into this life, was most certainly that of recently-regenerated, unhealthy Time Lord or Time Lady, as it were.

But she was certainly not Gallifreyan, either...he could feel her terrifyingly slow single heart thud against his as he pressed her close to his fluttering two. Her labored breathing indicated no bypass system. Or perhaps she merely didn't know how to engage it. He didn't know. He was going to have to examine her. Soon.

How had this happened? When had it happened? Bad Wolf? Was it his fault? How often had he found himself wishing he had a Time Lord's forever with her, both when she had been by his side and when she had been torn away? How much had she suffered because of it? What had caused this particular regeneration? How was she maintaining her physical appearence? How many had she undergone before it? How had she survived the first one with no TARDIS? Would she still want to be with him? Would they have forever, now? Questions, questions. So many questions.

Finally, the square and his beloved blue box appeared in front of them and he let Jack push ahead to unlock and wrench open the door. The TARDIS cried out to him and to unconscious Rose, so happy to have her back and so worried that they might lose her again. She pulled the Zero Room right next to the Console Room and the Doctor strode in past Jack without a look back, depositing Rose in the center of the odd room Jack had never seen before.

"Jack. Kitchen. Tea. I need tea," he barked, quickly shucking his overcoat and suit jacket, rolling his shirt sleeves to the elbow and settling over Rose's body with a knee on either side of her hips, his hands on her temples, focusing all of his attention on her.

"Doc, I hardly think it's time for - "

"NOW," the Doctor said, turning away from Rose for one brief second, his blazing eyes catching Jack's.

Jack scurried from the room with a hefty push from the TARDIS as well, finding everything he needed for tea in the kitchen. He didn't understand the need for tea but an order like that from both the TARDIS and the Doctor was not to be disobeyed. Returning to the Zero Room, he shuddered upon entering, the air filled with a very strange, crackling energy Jack recognized as telepathic with the Doctor and the TARDIS focused solely on Rose.

The Doctor seemed to take no notice of him as he re-entered and so Jack quietly laid the tray next to Rose's body and then settled on the opposite wall, chin resting on his knees, to watch.

The Doctor's eyes were closed and his hands were on either side of Rose's head. He was murmuring softly, emphatically in musical tones Jack could just barely make out and, to Jack's great surprise, he was sweating profusely. Obviously whatever he was doing inside Rose's head was hard work. He'd never seen the Doctor sweat like that before, nor had he ever seen him more focused and determined.

The Doctor and the TARDIS were working in tandem to rebuild the pieces of Rose's brain that kept collapsing under the hefty pressure of her Time sense. It seemed that the human parts of Rose's brain were reacting against the foreign Timeline impulses similar to the way human bodies sometimes reject donor organs. How she had survived any previous regenerations was beyond him. Finally, he and the TARDIS managed to get ahead of the chaos, convincing the stubborn regeneration energy still fluctuating wildly around to format her mind as Gallifreyan to accommodate the Timelines, using his as a model, recognizing the superior genetics.

Jack wasn't sure how long they stayed like that, the Doctor crouched over Rose's inert body, hands on her head, with strange waves of energy fluctuating around the room. Sometimes the lights would flicker and dim with the energy waves since the TARDIS was focused on Rose instead of silly things like lights. Finally, once Jack was beginning to feel numb, the Doctor gasped and removed his hands from Rose's head and the strange telepathic tension in the room dissipated. He gently climbed off her body and slouched over beside her, running an exhausted hand through his sweaty hair. Reaching over to the tea tray, he downed several cups of the cold tea himself and then carefully tilted Rose's mouth open and poured several down her throat as well.

Seeing Jack's confused and concerned look he muttered, "Tea. Good for the synapses," tiredly before turning over to lay shoulder to shoulder with Rose, entwining their fingers. Eyes focused on the ceiling he continued, "You should go back and check on your team, Jack. It's hard to tell who caught that regeneration energy signal from Rose and will be deciding to pay a visit. Last time, I had to battle some uglies for the planet in my jimjams and I'd rather not do that again." Feeling Jack's hesitation, he lifted the hand not attached to Rose's as if to fend off Jack's impending questions. "I'll answer as best I can later but Rose and I both need to rest in here and it's not good for you to spend too much time in this room," he finished, pressing his eyes shut.

He felt Jack rise and quietly shut the door to the Zero room and the TARDIS alerted him when Jack had left the console room. He turned over on his side to run his left hand over Rose's unconscious face and squeezed her hand with his other. "You can't leave me, you know that right? It's been hard enough without you these four years. I know I can't understand what you've gone through the past seventy-five without me and I hope you'll tell me, if not today then someday. But I do know what it was like the millennium before you came along, before I had your hand to hold and I can't go back. You can tell me anything, Rose. I'm never leaving. I'm never letting you go again. So sleep for now, my love, but you have to promise me that you'll wake up. Ok?" he asked, tracing along her cheek bone and letting a single tear of his fall from his face onto hers. The Doctor transferred his arms around her and held her close and together the last Time Lord and his salvation slept on in a room bigger on the inside, outside the laws of time and space.


	21. Explaining

**A few hints into what happened to Rose and why and a glimpse of this 'verse's take on Gallifreyan biology (more to come on that later). Back to Jack and the action next chapter. You're all amazing and thank you so much for the support and reviews! And I'm planning on locking myself in my room tonight and banging out some more of Shades of Blue. =)**

* * *

The Doctor slowly gained consciousness only to find that he had probably not really gained consciousness, unless consciousness had suddenly lost all of its creativity. From his position on the ground next to Rose, he could see that they were in a world entirely made of white. He slowly sat up, folding his long legs under his body, making sure not to release the hand clasped with Rose's, to look around them. Sure enough, everything around them: ground, sky, trees, grass, benches, everything, was disconcertingly white. He felt a bit as though he was in one of his early versions of the TARDIS. He felt Rose stir beside him and turned concerned eyes on her, watching as she blinked at the blank surroundings and slowly sat up as well, folding her legs underneath her until they sat facing one another, knee to knee, hands in hands resting on top.

He held his breath, waiting for her to speak first. She looked him over carefully, hazel eyes searching his face and taking in his upper body, shoulders and head. He considered her as well, noting that she still looked too thin, too haunted and that they both seemed to be barefoot and clad in some sort of white linen scrubs.

"Hello," she finally said, tilting her head to the side and offering him a shadow of a smile which he met with a smile bright enough to blind even in this white landscape.

"Hello!" he answered. He waited with bated breath until that shadow of a smile slowly transformed into a full-fledged one before continuing, "Not sure where we are. Any ideas?"

"Vergosa," Rose answered, both the surety in her voice and her answer surprising him.

"What?" he asked, incredulously. "We can't be!"

"Well, it certainly looks like the Vergosa I remember," Rose said, swinging her head around and crinkling her nose. "Not sure how we go here, though."

"You've been to Vergosa?" he asked, his voice rising in surprise and shock again and his eyebrows shooting into his wild hair. Even in a parallel world, it had to be impossible.

Rose frowned slightly at his confusion. "Well, yeah. It's where Pete took me after my telepathy first exploded an' I didn't know how to handle it. They taught me how to deal with it," she said, carefully, shrugging her shoulders. She and he had so much to discuss but his hands in hers felt so good.

"Rose, I don't understand," he said, letting go of one of her hands to pull at his ear and her heartstrings pulled, wanting to follow the action and reclaim that errant hand. "Vergosa is a Time Lord myth. A legend. El Dorado, Atlantis, Brigadoon, Oz. It doesn't exist. Anywhere, in any universe. It's impossible," he stammered.

"Ah, the arrogance of a Time Lord," a calm voice behind him drawled, sounding slightly amused. He jumped and clambered to his feet, dragging Rose up with him because there was no way he was letting go of her remaining hand. "Give him a glimpse of something he doesn't understand and it is immediately impossible. In all your years, in all your adventures, have you not learned, my dear Doctor, that there are really very few things that are actually impossible? Is there not, in the basis of all legends, some kernel of truth?"

He was immediately distressed when Rose let go of his hand to propel herself at the intruder, a very tall, blue, vaguely humanoid alien with a long neck, large, luminous blue eyes and no discernible mouth. Rose wrapped her arms around the creature's waist, burying her head in its torso. "Renyiors! I missed you!"

"And I you, little wolf," he responded, letting loose a lilting laugh and patting her back affectionately before disengaging himself from her. "You are worrying your mate, little one. You should return to him," he said, nudging Rose back toward the Doctor. She nodded, looking a little embarrassed at the term 'mate' but obediently returned to his side without question, taking his hand once more.

It had taken the Doctor a moment to realize that the creature, Renyoirs, as Rose had called him, was communicating entirely telepathically with them. He felt a small surge of jealousy wash through him as he watched Rose looking affectionately at the tall blue alien and both Rose and the Vergosan swung their heads to look at him, Rose looking surprised and Renyiors looking amused.

"I have no intention of moving on your mate," Renyiors said, making him blush at the way the word 'mate' kept being bandied around and making the blue creature look even more amused. "I am simply here in your dreamscape to explain a few things and then I will return to the past where I am needed/was needed and you will return to the present where you were needed/are needed/will be needed."

"This language is awkward to speak of Time in as there are not enough verb tenses to accommodate but Rose has yet to learn Gallifreyan and my language is long since dead for even you, Doctor. I realize you have questions, little wolf, but for now simply know this: my people were the keepers of Time before the Time Lords and I am sure that later the Doctor will share with you the undoubtedly exaggerated legends of us and you can tell him where he is wrong," he said, amusement shining once again in his luminous eyes. "Come, let us sit."

The three of them walked to the white grass and sat down again, the Doctor and Rose, hand in hand, side by side facing the tall, graceful creature. "Rose is/was/will be, as I am sure you have figured out, Doctor, a very unique event in Time and Space. As are you. The universe's attempt to right a wrong and perhaps Time's attempt to reward her champion. She is a fickle mistress and I have no hope to interpret her actions or motives," he said, seriously, turning to look first at one figure in front of him and then the other. "The Time War never should have happened and the Time Lords never should have perished. But it did, they did, and the universe suddenly rested solely on the shoulders of one threadbare man. That is until a silly little human girl came along to share his burden and a series of events much bigger than either of them could imagine were set into motion." The Doctor squeezed Rose's hand beside him and they both continued to listen.

Renyiors turned his attention back to the Doctor. "You are familiar, Doctor, with a crux in Time?"

"An essential point in Time requiring resolution in one of two ways, the outcome of which can significantly change the future," he rattled off, as if reciting a vocabulary definition, Rose thought.

"Correct," Renyiors answered, looking pleased. With anyone else, the Doctor would probably have been annoyed at the teacher-like tone he so often used himself, but he was so awed by the Vergosan, he took no note.

"The Dalek attack coming to a head at Satellite Five was supposed to be a fixed point. The end of the universes. It was Time's way of wiping clean the slate, of righting that wrong. However, your TARDIS and your human endeavored to change Time, making it a crux instead. Down one path, the Daleks complete their task and everything ends in the 51st century. Down the other, she returns to you, destroys the Daleks, becomes something new and everything continues."

Rose turned her head to look at him, looking just as overwhelmed as he felt. He tried to smile at her encouragingly before turning their attention back to Renyiors. "And the crux took the second path," he said.

"Yes," Renyiors answered. "Rose took in the Time Vortex and the first path was destroyed." He turned to look at the Doctor. "Merely saving you and destroying the Daleks, however, was not enough. The energy from the Time Vortex would kill her and you, Doctor, in your grief and anger, would soon have followed, leaving the newly forged future with no protector. Do you deny this?" he asked, the large pools of blue searching his face.

"No," the Doctor answered grimly, hearing Rose's sharp intake of breath beside him, turning his deep brown eyes to face her, willing her to know that losing his blessed anchor then, sacrificed for him, in that dark and chaotic body would have been far too much. It had almost been too much for this one, and at least this time he had known that she was alive, somewhere. It would definitely have killed him then, had almost killed him now.

"And so, Time sought to find a new solution. Taking the blueprint of the life you gave for hers," the Doctor squeezed Rose's hand at this as she gasped again, "the Vortex and your TARDIS rebuilt her in the image of a Time Lord as best they could. Not a perfect rendition but Time, as always, ironically, was short," he continued, wryly. "She was with you a short time following that but, as other events fell into place, it became clear that she would have to be separated from this universe for a time."

"But why?" Rose asked, breaking the silence for the first time. "Why did I have to be taken from him?"

"It was not from him, little wolf, but from another that you had to be protected," he said, sadly. "I will say no more as you two must explore your pasts together but know this: It was for the best, as much as it pained us to watch your grief and hardship," Reyniors continued.

"As there were no Time Lords to be called to help her and, indeed, few that would have anyway, we were called from the past to assist her after her first regeneration. The telepathy was not difficult to control and Rose is, as you well know, a bright and apt student," the Vergosan continued, smiling in their heads. "However, without a TARDIS..."

"Her Time sense would have killed her," the Doctor finished, horrified. His hand in hers tightened once again. He could have lost her again, right then and there. How many of these horrible near-misses was he going to have to learn about from her seventy-five year absence?

"Precisely," Reyniors said, nodding grimly. "And so we did what we could, locking all those impulses behind heavy shields, able to be unlocked only with the touch of another Gallifreyan mind, for when she was back with you and your TARDIS. It would seem, however, from the frantic memories flitting across your mind, Doctor, that our plan did not work quite as we had hoped."

No, it hadn't. Overwhelmed and confused, he'd tried to connect with her in Jack's lift, far from his TARDIS and he must have activated the seal then. No wonder it had seemed like her Time sense had just exploded in her head. It had. No wonder Rose had run.

"I must take my leave of you now, young ones, as I have completed my task. You have much to discuss with each other, but I am afraid that it will have to wait. Your friends need you now," he said, unwrapping his long legs and standing in front of them. Rose and the Doctor followed suit and stood facing him once more.

"It has been my pleasure to help you, little wolf, " he said, turning those luminous eyes to face Rose once more. Rose nodded to him and let a few tears fall down her cheeks.

"Take care of her, Doctor. And of yourself," he finished and, with that, the world of white around them began to dissolve, the last thing visible in the fading white, a pair of large, blue eyes that reflected in their depth two small figures standing hand in hand, with all of Time swirling around them.


	22. Rescuing

The Doctor and Rose both awoke, gasping, in the middle of the Zero room, still on the floor and still hand in hand. Panting slightly, the Doctor turned to face Rose who was staring very intently at the opposite wall. He used his free hand to reach out for her closest cheek and was hurt, once again, when she shied away from his touch.

"Rose, I -" he began.

"I need you to help me put the shields back up on all this weird Time stuff," she interrupted brusquely, standing up and forcing him to either stand or let go of her hand.

He stood.

"Rose, it's much more serious than that. I need to examine you and you need to learn how to control your Time sense. The shields are just a temporary fix," he said, frowning and trying not to be offended by the 'weird Time stuff' comment. He didn't mention that Time Lords spent much of their entire first existence learning just that.

Rose was attempting to keep a tight check on her emotions and memories but the vast change in her mental structure which he and the TARDIS had just completed to save her kept muddling her up. The effect was something like trying to re-teach oneself to walk after an accident except suddenly with the legs of another species instead of one's own. She knew what _should_be happening she just didn't know how to make it work.

Rose sighed and turned to face him but did not drop his hand. "I know, Doctor. But, that's going to take time and, _Time_Lord, that's not something we have a whole lot of at the moment."

His frown deepened. "What are you talking about, Rose?" he asked.

She sighed again. "Well, I can see how this might be hard for you to grasp, seeing as how you're usually the ancient being of Time in question but let me put it this way. When an ancient being of Time says your friends need help now, he generally means _now_," she said, patiently, reminding him of the Vergosan's words and trying to tug him toward the door, stumbling at the effect movement had on her overloaded brain.

He steadied her and muttered, "Ah yes, quite right, too," and felt her flinch physically and mentally, making him want to punch himself. He cleared his throat. "You're in no shape to go out there, no matter what's there. Stay here," he said, with little hope that his words would mean anything.

Rose gritted her teeth at him and he could see very clearly in the corners of her mind that she was thinking she'd survived seventy-five years without him and she could take care of herself. That thought and the defiant little flicker in her eyes, so like it had always been when they were together before and he'd ordered her to stay put and yet so different, caused him more pain than he would ever let on to her.

"Help me get my shields up and then once we get back here you can examine me and start teaching me how to use it," she said. His breath caught and he wondered if that was a promise to return with him and to him, a promise of a future together or merely a placating gesture for the moment. The dark eyes examining his own just as closely fought for the first but neither of them mentioned it out loud.

"Very well," he said, stepping forward and reaching for her temples. "Just a temporary fix, like I said earlier. Your mind's different now and trying to keep your Time sense separate from the rest of your brain is a bit like trying to keep one single wave separate from the rest of the ocean. For now, you need to be very careful outside the TARDIS. Promise me that, ok, Rose?" he said. It was more dangerous than he wanted to let on to her but, as she had reminded him if only by her thoughts, she'd survived like this for a long time.

She reached up and caught his hands before they touched her head, staring him directly in the eye. "I promise," she responded and released her grip. He nodded then closed his eyes and began to move toward her temples again when a tentative "Doctor?" forced them open once again.

"Yes?" he asked, his hands instead cupping her cheeks in the way he'd so often done when he'd been a different man, his eyes, brown not blue, searching hers once again for all their secrets.

"Please don't look at anything," she whispered, her voice full of pain and shame, closing her eyes then, to protect either him or her from what he might see there in the depths.

"I won't. I promise," he said, softly and sincerely, moving up to touch her temples finally. Together he, Rose and the TARDIS confined the full force of her newly added mental acuity behind those iron shields once again. When finished, he stepped back and let his hands fall to his sides, the full impact of his silent mind struck him once again, with a force he hadn't been prepared for. Having another mind, especially another Gallifreyan(ish) one to connect with in the silence, and especially the one belonging to the only other being in the entire universe that had ever managed to capture his hearts as well, had been profoundly comforting to his very core.

If he'd ever been able to let her go (which he knew he hadn't) he would never be able to now

He opened his eyes to see Rose watching him carefully, as if she knew what he was thinking. And maybe, he thought, she did.

"Ready?" he asked, turning on his most brilliant 'ready-for-adventure' smile to cover up the tremor in his voice.

"Ready," she said and, to his enormous relief, smiled back at him. She started toward the door and automatically reached a hand back for his and then seemed to catch herself and began to retract as if unsure of his reaction. He strode forward and locked their hands together as they were supposed to be, as they were meant to be. She gave him another almost shy smile. "All right, ancient being of Time. Let's go see what trouble Jack's gotten into," she said, falling into step with him and nearing the door out of the Zero room.

"Oi! Less of the 'ancient', thank you very much!" he crowed, indignantly, ultimately rewarded with what he'd hoped for all along...a brilliant little tongue-touched smirk that made his hearts flutter and his hand in hers tighten.

Trouble, indeed.

* * *

They reached the Console room just in time for Jack to come barrelling back through the door.

"Doctor! Rose! Good. You're out. Any progress?" he asked, eyeing them carefully and noting that they seemed at least a little more at ease with each other and were, thank God, hand-in-hand.

"A few answers and a hell of a lot more questions," the Doctor answered, confirmed by Rose's slight nod.

"Well, if you can, we could use your help," he said, moving past the issue at the moment. They'd figure it out and let him know when they did and he had bigger problems at the moment.

"What's going on, Jack?" Rose asked.

"Seems the Doc was right. Someone picked up on the energy signal you were emmanting and popped by to 'recover' it. Gwen and Owen went out to investigate and have been taken hostage instead. Arrogant bastards are demanding the energy source in exchange for 'em. 'Or else' they said," he replied, growling.

"Rescue mission, then?" the Doctor asked, excited despite himself. The old team, back together. Sort of. "Who are we dealing with?" he asked, moving away from Rose and flipping some leavers on the TARDIS, preparing to dematerialize.

"Hold up, Doc. Ianto's on his way in. Tosh is staying behind to monitor the situation and give assistance from the Hub, if we need." At his words, a polite, hesitant knock sounded at the door followed in, once Jack had opened the door, by the polite, hesitant man.

The Doctor smirked as Ianto tried, very hard, to keep his flabbergasted amazement to himself. He grinned and leaned against the nearest coral strut, crossing his ankles. "Go on, say it. I know you want to," he teased, watching as the man spun on his perfectly styled loafer to take in the entire room.

"It would appear the the interior of your ship is much larger than the exterior," he said, finally, making everyone, even Rose laugh. He looked momentarily confused at their laughter and then shrugged it aside, back into business mode. He handed a USB stick to the Doctor. "This is the communication they sent to us, along with genetic proof that they had Gwen and Owen."

The Doctor popped the stick into the console and then shifted back to stand near Rose who had settled herself on her customary position on the jumpseat. He noticed, however, it was not her former customary pose of languid joy. She sat straight and stiff, as though she might need to dart from the position at any second. He let his right hand bump against her leg and she flinched at the touch, tensing at the unexpected contact.

"Sorry," they both mumbled and watched the other out of the corner of their eyes for a reaction. Jack almost wanted to roll his eyes at the two. Honestly, a nine-hundred plus year old wreck of an alien and a one hundred-year old human with PTSD, acting like nervous teenagers with a crushes. Well, no time for being a relationship coach at the moment, he thought, as a nasty looking reptilian man came on the screen, demanding once for the energy source in exchange for his friends.

The minute the creature appeared, he heard Rose first growl slightly and then hiss in pain. All three men turned their attention on her and he noted that the Doctor seemed to be gripping her left knee rather tightly. Well, that explained the hiss of pain but how could he tell the Doctor that?

The Doctor had felt Rose's entire body go tense when the alien appeared on the screen and his hand, which he had casually let linger on her knee had tightened in response. He was too caught up in the sudden jumble of emotions and fleeting, painful memories that had shot through her and into him to notice that he was hurting her now.

Jack moved forward and laid a hand on her leg, disrupting the Doctor's grip and she relaxed marginally. "You know them, Rosie?" he asked, his voice snapping the Doctor out of his silence and making him realize, rather annoyedly, that Jack had replaced his hand on Rose.

"Yes," she said, standing up to shake both men off her and pacing away from them. "They're called Decamptors. Reptilian, obviously. Light and heat sensitive. Aggressive, cruel, and brutish with a society based on physical strength. We need to get your team off there, Jack," she said, seriously. "It's a matriarchal society so Owen's especially in danger. That whole ship will be full of young, headstrong, aggressive males looking to impress the females so they can jump 'em. Sound familiar?" she asked.

Ah, yes. That did sound awfully familiar.

"I assume you already tried reasoning with them and explaining that there isn't actually a viable energy source to exchange?" the Doctor said, frowning slightly over at Rose who appeared to be formulating a plan of some sort.

"Tried that. They seem to be pretty -," he began.

"Dumb," Rose interrupted. "They are. For the most part. The female captain on the ship might be smart enough to cause a problem but the males are all dumb. Their tech's a lot higher than their intelligence, though, so that's good. We can use that." She turned to the Doctor. "Doctor, we should be able to land undetected in one of the lower cargo bays, preferably the one below the holding cells, south-east end probably. Ianto, can you do a biosignature trace on them and see where they're being held? It'll speed up the process once we're there. Jack, as I said, they're light and heat sensitive. Have you got any sonic blasters with a chronofreeze setting? The cold should knock them useless for a bit but won't hurt them permanently. The drones are just following orders. It's the captain we'll need to see...What?" she finally asked as she realized that two of the three men she'd just ordered around were merely staring at her. Ianto had immediately set about getting biosignatures on the two kidnapped humans but Jack and the Doctor hadn't moved.

She raised an eyebrow at them and Jack coughed nervously. "Right, sonic blasters. Come here and take a look at mine, Rose and see if it's what you're looking for," he said, drawing her attention away from the still motion-less, befuddled looking Doctor. With Rose distracted by Jack, the Doctor moved to the console once again, setting coordinates to materialize in what did appear to be an empty, unguarded cargo bay on the south-east side of the ship. How had she known that? He knew she'd changed but this...this was terrifying to him.

Rose, examining both Jack and Ianto's blasters, pretended not to notice the furtive, deep looks the Doctor kept shooting her way when he thought she wasn't paying attention. Unfortunately, there were few things that missed her attention these days. Right now she knew the exact locations of all three men in the room and how long it would take each one to reach her current position, the best path to escape between the three and, for one if not two of them, the best way incapacitate them if needed. And, even with three-quarters of a century away from him, she was still an expert at catching the Doctor eyeing her meaningfully when he thought she wasn't looking. She fervently hoped the meaning hadn't changed.

The grinding and inelegant landing on the grating that indicated their arrival at their chosen destination knocked all thoughts about that from her head. No time to worry about how the Doctor felt or didn't feel about her. Especially not when all three men in her company were now standing up and looking at her as though awaiting instructions. Ianto, unashamedly watching her as she seemed to have taken the alpha position on this mission, Jack watching with interest and close attention and the Doctor frowning slightly and looking generally disapproving.

They had a mission to accomplish.

"Right," she said, straightening up and looking down, surprised at her lavendar formal gown attire. "I need to change quickly. Can't run properly in these heels and the dress'll just get in the way. While I'm out, Doctor, if you could check their blasters and make sure the chronofreeze is working and will continue to work." She strode to the door from the room and then turned back around. "And don't even think about heading out there without me. If you do, I'll just have to go out and save all five of your arses by myself and I don't fancy those odds."

When she returned several minutes later, dressed in clothes from their past, jeans, trainers and a pink hooded sweatshirt, the Doctor felt his hearts clench again. Both the jeans and hoodie, familiar items he had so often seen draped on her and in the disarray of her room and, if he was honest with himself, pictured draped on his bedroom floor instead of hers, hung loose on her too-thin frame. The bright pink of the hoodie, untouched in her room since her disappearance four years prior, only highlighted her pale face and haunted eyes. Rassilon, but he would change all of that. She'd never have to look like this again. He'd force-feed her chocolate and chips from the greatest planets in the universe, he'd take her to every sunny beach in the universe, and he'd make her laugh until her eyes shone again, he thought, fiercely.

"Ok. First things first, we need to get Gwen and Owen so they don't have leverage over us and so some male Decamptor doesn't decide that beating up Owen is the perfect way to prove himself. Those claws aren't just for decoration and their teeth are fairly poisonous," she said and her eyes suddenly became distant and clouded. Then she shook her head and, just as quickly, it was gone. She threw open the TARDIS door and, without waiting for a hand to hold from either of her former travel partners, she walked out, trailing them behind.

The Doctor walked silently behind her, watching her quick, sure movements closely. He could have told them that Salmandis, the Decamptor's homeworld was 20, 218 million miles from here. He could have told them that once a year the Decamptors celebrate the birth of all females in a week-long festival of feasts and sunlight. He could have told them that the Decamptor's language of clicks and grunts developed from a variation of the mating calls of creatures similar to Earth salamanders.

He could have told them any number of fascinating and probably useless details about the planet, the culture and the history. However, he was much more grimly interested in how his fluffy pink-and-yellow human knew that a Decamptor's razor sharp claws could cut through a steel wall like butter. And how a Decamptor's mouth contained one of the most excruciatingly painful slow-acting poisons in the known universe. And how she seemed to know the precise layout of a Decamptor warship.

And why, at the moment, she was standing beside the interior wall of the cargo bay knocking on it lightly with the fist of her left hand. The answer to that didn't take too long however as, to all of their immense shock, she drew back that fist and unceremoniously smashed it through the wall.

"Rose!" both Jack and the Doctor exclaimed, rushing forward. She extracted the now bleeding fist from the wall, clutching a large blue wire in her hand.

"What the hell was that for?" Jack exclaimed, beating the Doctor to it. Rose turned to him and seemed genuinely surprised at their outrage.

"This cord leads into the computer mainframe," she explained, seeming nonplussed and turning try and hand the wire to the Doctor who was much more interested in glowering at her and grabbing her injured hand instead. "Stop fussing. It's fine -" she started and tried to pull it from his grasp and was surprised at the growl and ferocity in his voice as he interrupted.

"It is NOT fine, Rose," he hissed, running his screwdriver over the broken skin, healing up the scrapes. "All you had to do was say you wanted that wire out of the wall and I could have gotten it. Hell, Jack or Ianto could have gotten it. Sonic tools, remember?" She looked slightly abashed. It honestly hadn't occurred to her...she was so used to being on her own, to making due with only what she had. Her eyes softened slightly. It was going to take a bit to remember that she didn't have to be alone anymore.

"Sorry. I didn't think -"

"That much is clear," he snapped at her. "Didn't your alien textbook tell you what a Decamptor is capable of once they smell blood?" He tried to block out the feelings that had arisen in him at the sight and smell of her bleeding. Too many instances in their past when he'd failed her. And now this possible proof of the way he'd failed her yet again. She didn't trust him and was acting like she didn't even need him.

"I am perfectly aware of their capabilities," Rose said coldly, turning from him and yanking the hand away. Jack watched sadly as the walls he'd seen start to crumble so briefly for a moment slammed up once more. He and Ianto exchanged a long glance.

"Ianto, you should be able to hook your pocket computer up using that wire and get the codes to override the system and find precisely where Gwen and Owen are being held. We also need to know where the control room is and, if possible, how many guards are on duty," she said, her voice steel once again but Jack could hear the weariness in her words.

Ianto busied himself with the wiring and Jack sidled over closer to Rose. The Doctor was still standing next to the hole in the wall, hands in front of him as though he were still holding her now-mended fist, seething.

"How do you know all this stuff about their ship?" he asked, gently, watching her face carefully.

Not looking at him, Rose took a deep breath and answered softly, "S'what happens when you've been the guest of honor on one of these ships before." Ianto's computer beeped softly and all four of them turned toward the now open cargo bay door.

"Allonsy," she said quietly before leading them out toward their captured friends.


	23. Negotiating

Rose led the way through the halls of the ship, checking with Ianto at each intersection. Using the schematics provided by hacking into the system, they were able to quickly find the holding cells. Standing at the end of one hallway, their little band of rescuers could, quite clearly, hear the distant sound of a bickering Gwen and Owen. Jack smiled. Some things never changed.

Rose pulled a compact mirror from her pocket and used it to look around the corner to the final corridor. "Two Decamptors, both male, one on either side of the hall. Jack, Ianto, can you cover them? About three seconds with your chronofreeze should do it." She shuffled back beside the Doctor so Jack and Ianto could move to the foreground and, with a nod from her, they threw themselves around the corner. Seconds later, they were stepping over the currently frozen bodies of the two guards.

The Doctor stepped over them first, screwdriver out, prepared to open the holding cell door before Rose ordered him to. She said nothing, simply let him step past her. The door swung open and Gwen and Owen came barrelling out. "It's about time!" Owen chided Jack as they passed by. Rose once again took the lead and began to lead them through the winding corridors back to the TARDIS when suddenly the sounds of scuffling behind her made her blood run cold.

She turned around to see four Decamptors crowded into the hallway with them, each one holding one of the men by the throat. "Don't. Move," Rose growled softly to the men, drawing herself up proudly and shooting a pointed glance at Owen who was struggling with his captor. Something in her eyes must have conveyed the seriousness of that warning because he immediately stopped struggling. The Decamptor holding him looked back and forth between Rose and Gwen a moment, focusing on Rose and then gave a throaty chuckle.

"You've taught them well, GerHaupta," he said, menacingly. "Maybe it will save them. Maybe not. Our Haupta wishes to see you. It would be in their best interest not to keep her waiting."

Rose gave what sounded like a long suffering sigh. "Oh, very well," she said in a bored tone that surprised them all. "Lead on."

The Decamptor holding Owen moved to the front of the line and the rest surrounded her with Gwen trailing behind, looking slightly confused. In a low, quiet voice Rose murmured, "Do exactly as I say. But...don't listen to a word of it."

The Doctor walked silently along in the group, trying his best not to shift too much with the tight grip of claws around his throat. He also tried to look submissive and quiet. He understood what she was doing even if the others were a bit slower to catch on. Rose needed to prove herself as the alpha female in order to even negotiate with the Decamptor captain. Their continued existence hinged on Rose demanding respect enough from the alien at least for conversation.

He really, really hoped that Rose had a plan.

Soon they found themselves in a large, open area with several Decamptor guards standing by. The entire ship had been uncomfortably warm but this room was degrees above sauna. The oppressive heat in the room was almost unbearable and all five humans were sweating uncontrollably almost instantly. Even the Doctor, who rarely looked anything other than comfortable in his suit and overcoat, seemed to look a bit flushed.

In the center of the room, settled languidly in a plush chair right next to the enormous heating structure, was a very large Decamptor, larger than all the males, this one without the head crest and with a very sizeable curved claw on each foot. The Captain, apparently.

She waited until they had crossed approximately half the room before rising and moving toward them with the grace and menace of a predator. The Captain looked each of them over impassively, her eyes finally settling on the small, thin form of Rose standing proudly at the front of the ensemble looking bored and unafraid. Rose who seemed to radiate power and confidence from every pore, despite the uncomfortable temperature and the menacing adversaries.

"You have shown a great deal of stupidity walking into my ship and attempting to take what is mine," the reptilian woman said, glancing down at Rose from her impressive height with haughty grandeur.

"On the contrary," Rose replied, looking back up at the much larger creature and matching her disdain. "In taking what is mine you have made a grave error. I have merely come to retrieve my possessions."

"What is yours," the Captain scoffed, strolling casually over to stand in front of the unguarded Gwen. "This one is larger than you and," she took in a large sniff and moved closer to Owen, "and this male smells more of her than of you. I can see why my men were unsure of which of you was the alpha. If you are their Haupta you are obviously not a very good one. A good Haupta keeps a better handle on her possessions," she said, running a clawed hand over the cheekbone of Jack's captor who growled in delight at her touch.

"She is stupid," Rose said, waving her hand dismissively at Gwen. "But she serves her purpose. That one," she motioned to Owen "cannot keep me satisfied but fights well. She keeps him...occupied." Rose ignored the momentarily outraged looks from both Gwen and Owen weren't quite able to hide and the snort of laughter Jack (almost) managed to hold back.

"And these two?" the Decamptor asked, moving closer to Jack at the sound of his snort. "They smell more of each other than you." Ianto had the good graces to blush and Jack smiled wolfishly. "Although this one does smell of his desire for you," she continued, running the back of a clawed hand along Jack's chest. Out of the corner of her eye, Rose saw the Doctor's eyes flash and his body tense. Jack's smiled dimmed slightly.

"What they do on their own time is their business," Rose said, looking bored again. "As long as they serve their purposes to me and do their jobs, what they do with each other other times does not concern me." Rose was still talking when the Doctor felt a mental nudge, causing him to shift uncomfortably in his captor's grasp.

_"Doctor! Can you hear me?" _Rose's voice came in loud and clear in his head even his ears listened to her nonchalantly discussing Ianto and Jack's sex habits.

_"Yes,"_ he replied tentatively. How was she managing to talk to him like this? And to hold two conversations at once? _"How are you -" _She cut him off.

_"Good. Do you think you can reverse the polarity of the heating system in here?" _she asked and he watched as her head jerked ever so slightly toward the massive heating system in the center of the room. Oh, brilliant. That was his girl. A few quick adjustments to the screwdriver and he could reverse the heating structure to suck out all the hot air in the room instead of pumping it in, almost instantly leaving the room freezing cold and the Decamptors incapacitated in a matter of seconds.

_"If I can get closer to it, yes. Got the screwdriver in my pocket." _

_"How close?" _she asked after a slight pause, seeming distracted by whatever the Decamptor had just said out loud. He had been listening so closely for Rose, he'd been ignoring the other conversation.

_"That chair close,"_ he said, grimly. _"And I'll need to be free." _

"What is it that you want, exactly?" he heard Rose say out loud with the connection broken.

The Captain moved to sit in her chair next to the heating coil and examined her claws the way a human female might examine her manicured nails. "You know what we want. We want the energy source."

"Why?" Rose asked and the Doctor shifted, trying to get one hand into his coat pocket with the screwdriver. His captor tightened his neck hold and he froze, feeling one claw dangerously near drawing blood. Rose's eyes darted over to him momentarily. "You don't need the energy. And this technology is far beyond your people's."

"The Decamptors are strong. We -"

"Someone's manipulating you," Rose interrupted and the Doctor swung his gaze to her, surprised. That was quick.

"Clever girl," the Captain nodded, eyes flashing at Rose's interruption. "But not manipulating. We work for him and he helps us to advance the Decamptors' place in the universe. Already we are so much more powerful than before." Well that explained the technology beyond their time, the Doctor thought.

"As to why...," the Decamptor captain continued, "It is an anomaly. It will interest him. He will reward me. Now you will give it to us or I will be forced to take more drastic measures. Against your pack."

"There is no energy source. You chase nothing," Rose said, harshly.

The Decamptor once again started examining her claws but the nonchalance was quickly falling away, giving way to annoyance. "Do you know what will happen if I allow one of my males to draw blood from yours? What will happen the second they smell the blood, scrawny thing?"

The Doctor, watching Rose carefully, saw her body tense ever so slightly. "Yes," she said a bit too quickly, before falling back into her pose of nonchalance. But it was too late. The Decamptor, no fool either, had spotted that small gathering of muscles.

"Ah," she said triumphantly, rising once again to walk closer to them, this time circling Rose. If he could just get his hand into his pocket... "You're familiar with us, then," the Decamptor said, leaning in close to Rose and sniffing deeply. Rose didn't flinch, didn't so much as blink, despite the seven foot tall horror that looked liked it had stepped out from the imagination of Steven Spielberg towering over her. "Oh! And you have tasted our poison," she cried, dancing back in macabre delight from Rose. All five pairs of eyes from her "pack" turned to Rose, whose face remained as impassive as ever.

"You intrigue me, little bird," the Captain said, settling back into her chair. "Very few survive such an encounter. But the poison never leaves your system, you know," she taunted, seeming even more terrifying lounging in the chair than prowling the circle. "All it would take was one tiny nip and you could experience it again. Is that what you want?"

Rose didn't reply, merely fixed the creature with a withering gaze. The Doctor could see and feel the well of anger and fury growing behind the tight shields he had helped Rose put up. She needed those shields up and functioning. She needed to control that terrifying anger. He wondered absently if this was what it was like to watch his own mind.

"My patience with you is growing thin," the Decamptor finally said, a tinge of anger coloring the boredom in her tone now. "Bring me the big brown one," she ordered, and the Doctor's male scrambled to comply, shoving him toward the chair and forcing him down on his knees. Rose watched as his hand went to his pocket. Time, now. She needed to buy him a few seconds to adjust everything.

"Your final choice, little bird. The energy source or your favorite consort meets his death. Followed quickly by the rest of you. Now," she said, raising the clawed hand above the Doctor.

"I don't think so," Rose said, making a sudden movement toward the Decamptor, catching its descending wrist as the Doctor threw himself to the side, screwdriver out and sparking. Immediately, the heating structure gave a low whine and the room was instantly nearly as cold as ice, the massive column sucking all the heat out just as efficiently as it had been pumping it in. Another adjustment to the control panel and all the heat in the entire ship was sucked out.

Jack and Ianto had managed to duck away from their captors in the ensuing confusion but Owen was currently still in the choke hold of his now-frozen captor. Ianto reached over and, almost casually, snapped the wrist of the giant lizard, freeing Owen.

"We have to get out!" Gwen shouted to Ianto and Owen, knowing that the subzero temperatures would quickly begin affecting the humans as well. They took off down the halls, the chill pervading the halls making them shiver as it touched their sweat-drenched bodies. The eerie sight of the gigantic frozen Decamptors littering the hallways was, to say the least, very creepy. They followed Ianto's instructions to get back to the TARDIS, reaching the door before realizing that all three people with keys were currently not present. They pressed close together, attempting to share what body heat they had between them for the moment.

"If either of you ever mentions this again, I will make your life a living hell," Ianto said, dryly.

Gwen and Owen believed him. You didn't mess with man who was in charge of the coffee.

Back up in the control room, the Doctor, Rose and Jack were having a harder time. The Doctor, rolling from his position on the floor next to the center coil, turned to face Rose triumphantly when Jack suddenly shoved him unceremoniously to the floor with a loud cry. Shocked, he was on his feet in a moment and turning, following Rose's horrified gaze to see Jack fall forward onto the floor, his blood spilling all over the floor from the deep jagged wound across his back. The Decamptor Captain, larger than the others, had taken longer to immobilize and had managed to use her massive foot claw to catch Jack across the back before she had frozen completely.

The triumph and fury in her eyes, the only part of her currently capable of expressing emotion, quickly turned to outrage and fear as she watched as the massive wound healed itself and Jack stood up, apparently no worse for the wear.

The Doctor met Jack's eyes and the two nodded in acknowledgment of each other. The Doctor turned back to face Rose, trying to ignore the massive waves of fury and the vivid, graphic scenes of what the Decamptor was envisioning doing to them all at this moment bombarding him from the frozen creature.

Rose was standing, frozen herself but in a different way, in the center of the room, staring at Jack's blood staining the bright white floor of the control room. Her eyes were wide and unseeing and her mouth worked silently.

"Go, Jack," the Doctor said quietly.

Jack began to protest at the Doctor's back as he slowly advanced on Rose, not wanting to startle her from whatever she was experiencing. "Your human team won't be able to handle these temperatures much longer and they don't have a key to the TARDIS," he said, eyes still focused on Rose.

The Doctor reached out a hand to lay on Rose's arm and suddenly he found himself deluged with more images of carnage in this room. No. Not this room. A similar room. And not Jack's team but others...his gaze swung wildly around the room. The floor was littered with the wretched, torn bodies of unfamiliar yet familiar people, all of them in black combat gear and everywhere there were raging, mad Decamptors, tearing, ripping...red. Everything was red. And pain. So much pain.

The pain was clouding everything...he could feel it ripping through his body, destroying things that weren't meant to be destroyed, only to have them heal quickly just to be destroyed again. How was he still on his feet? He stumbled and found his back was pressed to another person's and he turned slightly to see a badly wounded Jake looking back at him through his haze of pain. Jake was shouting, brandishing his blaster and he was shouting too, he thought. A young man of about 25 was screaming, writhing on the floor in front of them and the circle of crazed Decamptors was closing in on them.

Jake. Thomas. That was the boy's name, he remembered. He hadn't even learned the last name properly before this mission. And now the boy would die.

He needed to help them. He needed to do something. He couldn't just let them die. His team was dead and it was his fault. He could have done something, something more. He could see quite clearly what would happen if they died...almost like he could see a possibility of the future. This force would take to the Earth below and the carnage would continue. No hope. Just him. Defender of the Earth.

No. He hated thinking those words.

He fell and Jake fell to his knees beside him. Jake was fading. Thomas was screaming.

Hands pressed over the wound on Jake's chest, he howled in fury, tears ran down his face. The creatures were almost on top of them now. Blood obscured his vision and covered his hands. He was so angry. The anger coursed through him like fire. It didn't have to happen like this, shouldn't have happened like this. Twelve good men and women. Fourteen with Thomas and Jake.

No. They weren't dead yet. He wouldn't count them as dead yet.

Desperately, he reached out with his mind. He could feel their minds, hundreds of them, bloodthirsty reptiles crawling through the ship like ants. They were so tiny. So insignificant.

If only he could just...

The Doctor gasped and staggered back and Rose crumpled to the ground. His hearts broke again for her and horrified, he picked her up once again to carry her to the TARDIS. This new, strong Rose would hate that, he thought suddenly...would hate him carrying her like this.

Or maybe she wouldn't.

Maybe that's what she needed. Someone to carry her for a while.

He would be that someone.

He would carry her to the end of the universe and back again if it would heal her.

Only time would tell.


	24. Forgiving

He strode back into the TARDIS and Jack immediately shot from his seat on the bench, looking worried when he saw them. The TARDIS seemed to have found clean, dry clothes for everyone and each human held a steaming cup of tea.

"Is she -" Jack began.

"She's fine. Went into a sort of telepathic shock to protect herself from some painful memories, I think," he said grimly. "She should be awake soon. She is slightly hypothermic, though," he said, as Jack followed him, starting out of the room toward the MedBay.

"What's the TARDIS treatment for that?" Jack asked, choosing to allow the Doctor to be short with him for the moment. He was getting quite tired of the Time Lord acting like he was only one who cared for Rose, but his concern for her came first.

"IV treatment of warming fluids and she'll be fine in a jiffy," he said. "Ugh. Jiffy. Not saying that again." Truth told, Rose's body already seemed to be regulating its temperature but not quite fast enough for the Doctor.

Jack laid a hand on the Doctor's shoulder. He wasn't going to like this, but Jack needed to protect Rose, to protect her secret until she chose to share it. The second the Doctor pulled up her sleeve to insert that IV, he would see the scars crisscrossing the surface there and would quickly trace them over the rest of her.

It was Rose's right to tell him when she was ready.

And the universes didn't need to face the Time Lord's wrath at the moment.

"Let Owen do the IV," Jack said.

"WHAT?" the Doctor yelled and Jack cringed. He had known that would happen. "If you think for even one second, Jack Harkness, that I'm going to let a two-bit sex-crazed human doctor anywhere near my Rose then you've another -"

Jack's anger flared up. Owen was very highly qualified. All right. And a bit sex-crazed. "Do you think you're the only one who cares for her? I do, too!"

"Oh, I know that," the Doctor said venomously. "Even that Decamptor knew that."

Jack cringed again. Honestly, he'd always wanted them both and he would probably be at least a little in love with each of them for the rest of his long, long life but it had been quite clear to him even from his first steps into the TARDIS that they belonged to each other and each other alone. You didn't stand in the way of a love like that. Especially when it was trying so hard to stand in its own way.

The Doctor shouldered past Jack roughly. "Doctor," Jack called after him. Something in his voice made the Doctor turn despite himself. "Could you just trust me on this?" he asked softly.

The Doctor was prepared to tell Jack and his soft plea to shove it when the TARDIS brushed his mind gently in agreement. In agreement with Jack.

Feeling stunned and betrayed, he merely stood gaping at Jack and the other three humans who were decidedly not meeting his eyes, and finally nodded. Owen scrambled from his position on the bench, joining Jack who had taken Rose from the Doctor's arms to traipse to the MedBay. Owen made a mental note to kick Jack later for putting him in the middle of this.

"What about the Decamptors?" Gwen asked once the trio had disappeared around a bend in the halls with the Doctor's burning gaze following them.

"I'll call the Shadow Proclamation. Decamptors don't generally venture out from their end of the galaxy...usually they prefer just to have wars with each other. A group this far from home is probably full of rebels and there's a very good chance they've caused a lot more trouble than this elsewhere in the universe," he responded, moving around the console with none of his usual joy, jerking them into the Vortex and giving his traitorous TARDIS an extra whack with his mallet.

One quick call to the Shadow Proclamation later, they were assured that the rebel faction of the Decamptors would be quickly and efficiently rounded up for their apparently very long rap sheet.

Back at the Hub once again, the Doctor silently opened the doors and Gwen, Owen and Ianto quickly made themselves scarce. Jack and the Doctor stood on opposite sides of the console considering each other for a moment.

"She's in the library," Jack said finally, his voice soft. "I think she'd like to see you."

"Thank you, Jack," the Doctor answered.

Jack looked up at him, surprised. "For what?"

"For saving me and...for helping her. She's going to need us both, I think."

Jack nodded in agreement. "She will. Don't forget that. I won't stand in the way of you two but I won't let you hurt her, either. She's always got a place here. And so do you. And don't leave without saying goodbye," he responded, nodding to the Doctor one final time and slipping out the doors.

Squaring his shoulders, the Doctor treaded carefully down the hallway to the library. He opened the door quietly, not wanting to startle Rose. He found her sitting on the edge of what had always been their favorite couch, staring into the flickering firelight. Very carefully settling in beside her, just millimeters away from touching her, he joined in her vigil, waiting for her to speak. He was reminded once again how much things had changed. This used to be their routine when he was dark and brooding except it was Rose who would come in and wait for him to speak.

"You saw, then," she said, quietly.

"I did," he answered, gravely.

"I killed them all."

"I know." He reached for her hand and was surprised when she didn't resist. He interlocked their fingers loosely, pulling her hand over to rest on his knee.

"I didn't even know what I was doing. I was so angry and hurt and desperate...Just one second they were there and the next...gone. It was so easy," she said, her soft tortured voice grating over him.

"I know," he said again.

Softly, slowly, in a broken voice barely over a whisper, Rose began to tell him the rest of that story.

* * *

Her hands were pressed down on the largest of Jake's wounds, a deep, horrific one slashing across his torso. She was tired, so tired and the pain was unrelenting. Her body was struggling to keep up, struggling to restart each organ that failed. Thomas, barely two feet away would not last much longer. She wasn't sure how he'd lived this long, his wide pain-filled eyes turned on her and heart-rending screams for help hurting her even more than the poison in her veins. She couldn't do anything to help him. Couldn't do anything to help any of the fallen around her.

Worse, fighting as she was to stay conscious, her shields had come down and hazy, panicked thoughts of Jake and the blood-crazed, vicious thoughts of the ship full of Decamptors bombarded her. Thoughts of what they had done, what they would do. Strange golden light filled her mind and suddenly she could see what could happen. What would happen? What might happen? She didn't know. She was going mad, after all.

She couldn't stand it. She had to do something. She couldn't lose Jake. She couldn't fail Torchwood. Defender of the Earth, that's what she was.

No. Don't think of him. It only brings more pain. HE wouldn't have let this happen. HIS team wouldn't be laying dead all around him. She'd failed. She had failed over and over again. He would be so disappointed in her.

She could feel all of the reptiles' minds around her, the ones only a foot away and those throughout the whole ship. She just wanted it to stop. All of it. She felt herself stagger to her feet and she reached around her. Power blazed through her and she felt so in control. It felt as though she held all of their consciousness in the palm of her hand.

She crushed the hand shut.

And, just like that, every Decamptor crumpled to the floor. Dead. Every single one.

Oh, God.

What had she done?

She realized it was quiet, too quiet. Looking down at her feet, she saw the now silent Thomas, the poison having taken its toll, his face forever frozen, his wide lifeless eyes filled with utter terror staring not at the monsters but...

At her.

What had she done?

Jake sputtered at her feet and she drug him back to their ship, just down the hall. Patching him up as best she could, she made sure he was stable and then hit the emergency recall on the Torchwood I ship. Mickey would have heard their distress call. The ship would materialize where they could help him. He would live. One of fourteen. At least Jake had lived.

She disabled the tracer system on Torchwood II and did the only thing she could think to do.

She ran.

Well, first she died.

And then she ran.

* * *

A week later the door to her motel room splintered in with terrifying force. Rose considered leaping to her feet to defend herself. Her blaster was right there. And her knife. Really, it was necessary on a planet like this. Maglunx wasn't exactly a pleasure planet for the rich and famous. More like a dive planet for the shady and sleezy.

The almost empty bottle of amber liquid in her hand argued against leaping of any kind.

Fine, then. Let them come.

Strong hands grabbed her by the shoulders and she slumped forward slightly.

"ROSE! WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?"

Well, that was interesting. She didn't think anyone here knew her name. She'd used an alias to book the room and it's not like she'd been exactly social. She bleerily gazed at the face swimming in the general vicinity of 'in front of her'.

"Oh. 'ello, Mickey. Wha're you doin' here?" she slurred.

"What am I doing here? What are YOU doing here in this shithole drunk off your arse? You do know that I've been all over the entire bloody universe searching for you? What's the matter with you? C'mon. We're getting out of here," he said firmly, stuffing her blaster and knife in his pocket, throwing the bottle to the floor with the rest of the many there and dragging her by the arm from the room back to his waiting ship.

"M'sorry?," she said, stumbling to keep up with him. There was a reason she didn't want to talk to him...a reason she didn't want to be sober but she couldn't for the life of her remember what it was.

Then again, that had probably been the point of this, yeah?

She registered vaguely that Mickey was pulling her into his ship, pulling her through his ship and then, she heard the distant sound of running water...like a shower being turned on.

Distant but not for long.

Mickey shoved her, fully clothed, into the freezing cold, streaming down water of the shower. She sputtered, gasped and retreated as soon as possible but the cold water had done its job. Quite rudely and quite surprisingly, sobriety came to a screeching halt in front of her mind...along with the reason she had been in that shithole drunk off her arse.

She had run and run and run until she could run no longer and that was where she'd ended up.

Mickey came storming back into the washroom to find her sitting on the toilet seat, head in her hands, dripping cold water all over the floor.

"Dry clothes then meet me in the galley," he said, turning on his heel and leaving her alone once again. She didn't have the energy or the will to fight him, so she did as he said, stripping off and changing into the clothes, baggy spares of his.

Hiking the sweatpants up her narrow hips, she traipsed out to the galley, settling down at the table with the cuppa Mickey placed in front of her. She had to admire his control. He sat and stared at her in silence until she finished her tea even though she could tell he was nearly bursting from the effort to stay silent. Once the dregs were the only thing to remain in her cup, he swiped the empty cup from her hand and slammed it down on the table, the glass shattering.

"What the hell happened, Rose? We got the distress call but couldn't get past the shields on the ship, then Torchwood I materialized with Jake an inch from death and Torchwood II went off the grid. When we got up there, everyone was dead and you were nowhere to be found...WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED?" he asked again, even more agitated.

"I killed them," Rose said, quietly.

"What? Killed who, Rose?" Mickey asked, shocked.

"Everyone," she said.

"The Decamptors, you mean? How could you possibly have killed all -"

"Everyone, Mickey. I killed everyone," she said again, standing up from the table suddenly, her chair clattering to the floor.

"Rose -"

"They were my team! It's my fault they're dead, Mickey Smith and don't you even try to deny it. We didn't know what we were getting into, didn't do enough research, didn't have enough time, whatever. But it's my fault that they're dead, all of them. Even Thomas. His first mission and we're knocking on his mum's door with a letter and a badge. I didn't even know his bloody last name and I killed him!" she shouted.

Mickey opened his mouth to interrupt but she barrelled on. "And then do you know what I did, Mickey? I killed those Decamptors. The entire ship. I just reached out with my mind and snuffed them all out. Like blowing out the candles on a birthday cake. One breath and whoosh. All dead. Every single one. And then I looked down and Thomas had died with this terrified, horrified look on his face -"

"Yeah. Like that one," she said, softly, suddenly meeting Mickey's eyes. Mickey quickly tried to hide his reaction but it had been too late. "Still want to tell me I'm a good person? That this power isn't wrong? That's I'm still the same ol' Rose Tyler? Because I'm not. I'm dangerous and not just to aliens. I'm dangerous to everyone I know. Maybe Torchwood should just lock me up -"

"STOP IT," Mickey commanded, on his feet in an instant too. "That's never gonna happen, Rose. Not on my watch. You were right. We didn't know what we were getting into, we didn't do enough research and we didn't have enough time. We lost a lot of good people up there but it is not your fault, Rose. And as for the Decamptors, you did what you had to do, didn't you?"

"I -"

"What would have happened, Rose? What would have happened if you hadn't stopped them?" he continued, grabbing her by the shoulders and forcing her to look at him.

"They would have invaded. Mycrous would have succeeded this time," she said, reluctantly. She had seen that, after all.

"And how many would have died then, Rose? How many after that? What kind of a future is that? We make the tough decisions, Rose. We make the sacrifices that have to be made -"

"That's easy for you to say! You didn't kill all! You didn't watch your team get massacred by crazy Jurassic Park monsters -"

"Not this time, no," he said. "We all have burdens, Rose," he finished quietly.

Suddenly she was in his arms and he struggled to breathe in the tight hold she wrapped around him. "If you'd been there, Mick...I'dve lost you. I almost lost Jake. I can't lose you, too. I can't lose anyone else. It's too hard..."

"I know, babe, I know," he soothed, letting her tears fall on his shoulder. "I'm right here. Can we go home now?"

Rose pulled away and sat down heavily on one of the galley chairs. "There's somethin' I've got to do first," she said. "Then I'll come home."

"Rose -" he began, loath to let her out of his sight.

"I promise, Mickey."

"Swear, Rose. Swear to me on...on the TARDIS," he ignored her flinch. "Swear to me on the TARDIS you'll come home and that you're not going to do anything stupid."

"I swear on the TARDIS I'll come home," she said, her dark eyes burning into his. Mickey saw something new there, something hard and terrifying and he felt a flicker of the fear he'd felt earlier at her admission. She really was turning into something new.

"Ok," he said, conceding to her. "Let me get you some supplies. And Rose?" he said, making her turn back to face him.

"Jake said you'd been poisoned. Did you...are you..."

"I'm fine. Now," she said, cagily.

"Did you...?"

"Yes," she said.

Mickey frowned. He assumed her healing capabilities had combated the poison in her system...they'd proved to heal fairly fast. So how had it managed to get bad enough to kill her?

"How -" he began.

"I don't want to talk about it," she snarled.

"Rose, that's the third one. You've got to be more careful...we don't know how many times you can -"

"I know," she snapped. "It's not like I've planned any of them. And I'd do it again. I'd do it in a heartbeat."

"There's someone starting to sniff around at Torchwood. We haven't figured out who yet, but it's been almost ten years, Rose. 'Good genetics' is only going to hold out for so long," Mickey continued. They'd not been able to pinpoint the source of the internal alarms that had been set off when someone started prying into Rose's file but it had definitely been someone inside of Torchwood.

"Then maybe it's time for me to go off-world for a while. I can do diplomatic missions but stay away from Earth," she said.

"We'll talk about it when you get back," Mickey said. Much as he didn't want her to leave them it was probably going to be the best option.

"Kiss Martha hello for me," Rose said, giving him the first real smile he'd seen on her face since he'd found her and kissing him on the cheek.

"I will. Be careful, Rose," he whispered, watching as she walked out the door of his ship toward the waiting Torchwood II. He really, really hoped that she would.

* * *

"Where did you go?" the Doctor asked, prompting Rose after she sat in silence for a few moments, simply staring into the fireplace.

"Salmandis," she responded in the same monotone she'd used to tell her story.

"Why?" he asked.

"Why do you think?" she responded, bringing her hazel eyes up to meet his.

"You wanted forgiveness," he said, softly.

"Yes," she said. "Wouldn't you?"

"Yeah," he answered and they stared at one another, letting unspoken things pass between them.

Finally the Doctor broke the stare, stretching his long legs out and stretching his arm across the back of the couch so it almost touched her shoulders. This couch had been "their" spot, his ninth self and hers and eventually, when they'd figured each other out once again, this body's and hers. Soft, well-worn and molded to their bodies, it spoke of the time they'd spent here. They had both napped, read, talked, ate and laughed on the couch, both alone and together but usually together. Their constant in an ever-changing, generally marvelous but occasionally disastrous universe. It was just big enough for two people: small enough to be intimate without seeming so yet big enough to give the illusion of independence. Rather like their relationship, he figured.

Rose had never released his hand and he wondered if she would lean into him as she used to do, as he wanted her to do. "This couch disappeared after I lost you," he said, quietly, fidgeting at the carpet with the toe of his trainer.

She didn't respond, merely turned luminous eyes to face him once again, waiting for his large soulful ones to meet hers.

"Why?" she said, eventually.

"Didn't have anyone I wanted to sit on it with," he responded, reaching over to take her other hand in his as well.

"You didn't travel with -"

"I had companions, yes," he said. "Martha and Donna. They were both brilliant, don't get me wrong. But they weren't you, Rose. They could no more fill that spot next to me on the couch than they could retrieve my hearts from the other universe where they'd strayed, forever with you."

"Doctor, I..." Rose trailed off. She wasn't sure what to say. Seventy-four years ago, she'd known exactly what to say, what she would have said, what they would have done. But she was different now. He couldn't possibly...

"You don't have to say anything right now, Rose," he said, shifting so he was kneeling in front of her knees. "I know we've got a lot to work through but I want you to know that I'm never going to leave you, Rose. I'm never going to let you go. Not again. Not ever. I'm no good without you, Rose and I'm going to do everything in my power to make you happy again."

Tears streamed down her face and she opened her mouth, trying to come up with some semblance of a response. He let go of one of her hands, reaching up to draw his knuckles across her chin and then using his thumb to sweep away the path of her tears. He leaned forward and his breath ghosted across her face, his eyes searching hers. "And even if it takes the rest of our lives to prove it, Rose. I just want you to know..." he brushed his lips against hers in a light, chaste kiss, just a barely-there brush.

"I love you," he whispered.


	25. Singing

_"And even if it takes the rest of our lives to prove it, Rose. I just want you to know..." he brushed his lips against hers in a light, chaste kiss, just a barely-there brush._

"I love you," he whispered.

Rose watched him as he pulled back from his light kiss, to settle on his haunches still holding her hands. "You don't have to say anything right now, Rose. I'll say it enough for both of us. I wasted so much time, idiot Time Lord that I am, spent so many years just wishing I had said it, that I had told you, that I can't stop now, won't stop now. I'll shout it from mountaintops and whisper it in your ear at breakfast. I'll tell you before you go to sleep at night and when you wake up in the morning." His beautiful lips quirked up on the sides and he raised an eyebrow at her. "I'll tell you when I rescue you from being thrown in jail and I'll tell you again when you rescue me from being thrown in jail. I love you, Rose Tyler and I'll say it in front of anyone. In front of Jack, in front of Charles Dickens, in front of Shakespeare...I met Shakespeare, Rose! He was brilliant. I wish you had been there. For lots of reasons, actually. I think he fancied me and -"

"You think everyone fancies you," Rose said, offering him a small smile. She wondered how long it would take for him to resort to babbling mode. She also wondered how long it would be before she could tell him back. Or how long it would be before he found out the last of her secrets and decided he didn't love her anymore.

"Not you," he said, smiling back, scrambling to keep her talking as he watched the brief happy light from her eyes start to dim as she transcended into darker thoughts. He had to prove to her that he wasn't leaving this time. That he wasn't sending her away. They had forever and he wasn't letting it go. "Didn't think I could be that lucky. Especially when I was all ears and leather. Why would you ever fancy me?"

"I did," she said softly. "I do," she said, softer still.

"Good," he said, giving her his best, biggest, brightest smile and settling down beside her on the couch once again, keeping hold on one of her hands. They fell into another silence, this one more comfortable than the last.

"So what did you do after Salmandis?" the Doctor asked eventually. He hoped she would tell him what had happened there eventually but he could tell now was not the time to ask.

"Went back home and Pete set me up to go off world. Had my own ship...could go wherever I wanted, do whatever I wanted. I did a lot of diplomatic missions for Torchwood and spent a lot of time just roaming around the universe. Always seemed to know where to find some extra trouble," Rose said, a faraway glance in her eyes.

"That's your Time sense," the Doctor responded and Rose looked at him, surprised. "Even heavily shielded it would have drawn you to vulnerable points in Timelines."

Rose smiled at him sideways and, to his delight, stuck her tongue in her teeth. "Thought it was just 'cause I was jeopardy friendly."

"Well, yes, that too," he responded, nudging her with his shoulder.

"Even travelled with companions," she said, looking at him and grinning slightly.

"Oh yeah?" he said, feeling torn between being sad for her and her separation from her family, being jealous that others had gotten to travel the universe with her and being proud of her.

"Yep. Just picked 'em up along the way, usually. Some by accident, some on purpose. Even travelled with a few that tried to kill me." The Doctor paled slightly but Rose didn't notice, caught up in her memories. "Some humans scattered around the universe, some aliens, a robot or two...and an Australian," she chuckled. "None of them stayed too long...actually I think the alternate version of Sarah Jane was with me the longest. What?" she asked, finally noticing the Doctor's paled features and his steady grip on her hand.

"The Australian...what was her name?" he asked. An Australian, an assassin, a few robots...Sarah Jane. He didn't like where this was headed.

Rose frowned. "His name," she said.

"What?" he asked.

"His name was Teagan," she said, her frown deepening.

"Tegan's a girl's name," the Doctor replied, unsure whether he should feel relieved or not.

"Well, I think he'dve argued with you on that one. Never one to keep his opinions to himself," she replied. "Pilots," she snorted.

"What about the one who tried to kill you?" he asked, pressing her again.

"Visla," she said. "Why do you ask?"

"Oh, Rose," he said, hanging his head and releasing her hand.

"What?" she asked, distressed that he'd let her hand go and by the wave of sadness that washed through him into her.

"Your universe made you into me," he said, sadly.

Her brow furrowed further. "I don't understand," she said.

"Tegan, Australian, flight attendant, travelled with me in my fifth life. Vislor Turlough, Trion, tried to kill me, also fifth body. Nyssa, Trakenite, Kamelion, Robot, Peri, human, Mel, human, Ace, human...shall I continue?" he said, rubbing his hand over his face and chancing a glance at Rose's now paled face.

"How -"

"Time Lords are heavy points in Time. We attract and are attracted to anomalies in Time. That's why I'm always stumbling into trouble even when I don't mean to. I've always attracted situations like that because I'm far more meddlesome than most Time Lords but I've had not only all of Time and Space to spread those encounters out but also, for the my first eight lives at least, millions of other Time Lords to attract at least a small portion of those events. But you...stuck in a universe with no access to even the past Time Lords and stuck in one timeline to boot..." he trailed off and looked her mournfully. "Your universe found you a suitable substitute for a Time Lady or maybe you are and...I'm so sorry, Rose." No wonder her life had been such a busy hell. If she'd experienced even half of his adventures crammed into seventy-five human years...

"You mean all of those things that happened were my fault?" she asked, reeling.

"No! No, of course not, Rose! It's just the way Time works. It all would have happened anyway, except more spread out, perhaps...only you wouldn't have been there to stop it. It is not your fault, Rose. It is absolutely not your fault."

"But Adric-" she trailed off and his hearts broke. He gathered her close to his chest. "I know, Rose, I know," he said, letting some his own tears fall. How much of his grief had she shared? How much of her life had been spent trying to find the good in a universe that had so often only shown its ugliness. How much of his life had she paralleled?

Pulling back slightly so their foreheads rested together, Rose said softly, "It's not your fault, either."

He sighed heavily and stood up, offering her a hand. "Are you tired?"

"Yeah," she said, accepting it and standing up. They walked quietly down the corridors until he stopped in front of a familiar door. "It's still here?" she asked.

"Just like you left it," he said. "I...I couldn't bring myself to change anything." Not that he ever would have...or that the TARDIS would have let him. Squeezing his hand, Rose pushed open the door and felt as though she had walked back in time. Everything, from the pictures on the dresser to the jeans on the floor was exactly as she remembered it. She pulled a pair of flannel pajamas out of the bottom drawer of her dresser. "I can't believe I ever wore these," she said, laughing slightly at the pattern of monkeys and bananas on the brown fabric.

"Ah, c'mon now," he said, smiling gently. "Those are one of my favorite pairs!"

Rose smiled at him and walked into the bathroom to change, shutting the door softly behind her. The Doctor shoved his hands in his pockets and then slumped down in the chair beside her bed. He wasn't sure exactly what he was supposed to do...he didn't want to leave her side but he also wasn't sure she would welcome him in here. During her time with him, he'd often occupied this chair, watching over her as she slept either because he was bored or couldn't bear to leave her presence for long or because he had to assure himself that she was ok after a particularly close call or all three. And when he had lost her, he'd often come in here to brood and remember...even slept in the bed with his nose pressed close to her pillow, cocooning himself in her long lost scent. Feeling her walk across the room smelling of soap and toothpaste, he opened his eyes to find her standing in front of him. It was still so hard to believe that she was actually here, with him. The only thing that kept him from thinking this was just another dream was the way she looked. She looked so frail, standing there in the jimjams of her youth, looking so thin and haunted. He stood up quickly and gathered her into a desperate hug.

"Stay with me?" she asked softly. Well, that answered that question.

He nodded and watched as Rose moved away from him and burrowed under the duvet, settling onto her pillow. He watched as her nose crinkled up and she glanced at him. He blushed slightly, knowing that she could smell him there but she said nothing, merely patted the bed beside her. Removing his suit jacket and climbing onto the bed next to her on top of the covers, he drew her close to him and she settled her arms around his waist. The Doctor's arms went around her, one settled across her waist, drawing her to him and the other gently sifting through her hair.

"Did you fancy him?" the Doctor asked suddenly.

"Who?" she mumbled into his shirt, adjusting her grip on his waist.

"Teagan," he said.

"Oh," she answered. After a pause she said, "I could have. A different time, a different place, a different me, I could have. But as it was...no. I just couldn't. You?"

"Same," he said quietly and her grip tightened and then released, a brief little hug.

"I love you," the Doctor said softly, placing a delicate kiss in her hair. He felt her begin to drift off and softly he began to sing to her. This body was good with words and, it seemed, good with music as well.

He sang to her in the languages of her planet, love songs in French, in Spanish, in Portuguese. He sang to her in lilting languages of exalted planets from across the universe, some none but he would ever sing again. He sang to her in his own language, almost extinct love songs that flourished even in the staid, formal Gallifreyan culture for love, in all its varied forms, exists even where it is least desired. Love flourishes even when it is least deserved. Love does not know the confines of language or universes or even Time. She had shown him that again and again. Now he would show her.

In her dreams, Rose heard his soft voice echoing through her mind, fending off her nightmares, keeping her safe and grounded. He loved her and that was all she needed.

* * *

In the console room, Jack Harkness had walked back in to check on his two best friends. "Where are they, old girl?" he asked, laying his hand on the Time Rotor. The screen beside him lit up and on it, he could just make out a sleeping Rose entwined around a (sadly, almost fully clothed) Doctor's waist. She looked more relaxed than he had seen since her sudden return. The Doctor was running his fingers through her hand and crooning to her softly. Jack didn't understand the words to the song he was singing but it wasn't necessary. The way his fingers gently moved across her head, the way his voice cracked with emotion, the way he looked down at the precious girl in his arms despite the semi-darkness...Jack didn't need a translation. He pulled out a sheet of paper from his pocket, ripped it in two and the TARDIS supplied him with a pen.

_Doc,_

Take her someplace lovely tomorrow. No running and I mean it. Just stop back in and say hello to me once you're back. Take care of her.

Love her.

Love,  
Jack

He folded the first note and placed it next to the mallet on the console and took out his second half.

_Rosie,_

Let him take you someplace nice. Don't worry about me...just stop back in and say hi when you're back. Don't let him make you run anywhere and wear something really sexy.

And don't keep too many secrets from him. Tell him.

Just let him love you.

Love,  
Jack

This one he folded and placed on the jumpseat. "Make sure they do it right, won't you, girl?" he asked, stroking the console. "When they come back, they better be happy and together. And making sweet, sweet cross-species love," he added and the TARDIS pulsed with amusement. With one last pat to the TARDIS door and a heavy sigh, he stepped back out into the cold night air of Cardiff. They'd be gone in the morning, with his blessing. He turned up the collar of his coat and walked back to the Hub, hoping they wouldn't wait too long to come back and see him again.


End file.
